AMP

I’ve been hopping into photo booths more frequently than normal as of late, and it got me thinking about why the photo booth market never took off in the United States as it did in other areas of the world. In Japan I’ve heard they’re everywhere, and I remember from my time studying in London that I could find one without looking that hard (was it because they were shaped like phone booths, which were also everywhere?). For some reason though, photo booths in the States have been relegated to the area of pure entertainment, found either in bars or amusement parks. Pretty much all of the photo booths I’ve encountered here have been the traditional chemical black & white ones (whereas in Japan most are digital and/or stickers).

Apparently the photo booth first appeared in America, so why didn’t they succeed here? While all of Apple’s computers now come with the Photo Booth application, it’s a distant cousin to the original as it lacks the limitation of a certain # of photos, the cost-per-photo limitation, and the end result of a printed strip of photographs (in these respects, Polaroids are actually more similar).

For now, it looks photo booths will remain a novelty, occasionally used by artists, but mostly for drunken entertainment. While no longer the efficient portrait-generators they used to be, I still hope they stick around, keeping company with typewriters and phonographs. In the meantime, if you’re hunting for a photo booth, I’d recommend using Photobooth.net–and if you know of any that aren’t listed, please contribute!

Charlie Ward is doing a series of interviews with various photographers in an effort to discover which photography books have had the most impact on us. You can read my response below (and also on the Little Brown Mushroom blog):

“The first photo book I can remember having a lasting impact on me would have to be my family’s photo album. I imagine my thrill upon its initial discovery was largely narcissistic, but the album played a major role in how I came to understand my identity, my past, and the formation of my earliest memories. The album itself is as thick as a phone book. The front cover is baby-duck yellow and says ‘Family Album’ in an embellished font, complete with photographs of some generic family enjoying an autumn picnic. Its thick adhesive pages were once a creamy white but have since gone yellowish-brown, a prime example of non-archival storage. The album starts right off with my birth and goes until I am about four or five years old. I think I noticed the album when I was around six, and revisited its contents once a week, experiencing what I can only imagine was a twisted sense of false nostalgia. Yes, I was six, reminiscing about the ‘good ‘ol days’. I kept looking through the album until it was memorized and I still don’t understand why I was so obsessed with it. Any way, no book of photography has affected or moved me in a similar way since. If I was to pick a commercially available photo book: Chronologies by Richard Misrach.”

Since I haven’t seen that photo album for some time, I asked my mother to take a picture of it and send it to me.

Turns out my memory isn’t so good after all. My overall impression was correct, but when I tried to remember specifics, I was wrong several times over. A perfect case of photography ‘correcting’ a memory.

Full disclosure: I consider this man to be my best friend ever, so there.

From Tucker Gerrick's 'Best Summer Ever'

Everyone in the world has their own personal ‘golden era’. It’s usually that time when all your best friends happened to live in the same town, worked shit jobs for shit pay, and yet it was all worth it when you got together, got drunk, and made something happen. It’s the era that movies like ‘The Sandlot’, ‘Stand By Me’, and ‘Superbad’ cater to–when everything was good great.

From Tucker Gerrick's 'Best Summer Ever'

The reason I bring this up is because old roommate, current slum-lord, and future skate/coffee/wine-bar entrepreneur Tucker Gerrick will be debuting his latest collection of photographs at Umber Studios this Saturday. ‘Best Summer Ever’ consists of photographs Tucker made all throughout the Summer of 2008. Among a certain group of friends, this was that golden era where relationships were formed and transformed through an endless stream of fantastic moments. But, as George Harrison sings, all things must pass, and Fall will come, people leave, and the Minnesota Winter always arrives.

So here we are, a year later, a number of experiences to tuck under our collective belts, and a beautiful, touching photographic collection to reference a great period of time for a group of friends.

From Tucker Gerrick's 'Best Summer Ever'

I encourage you to check this show out. Through one man’s photographs of his own golden era, a number of universally beautiful moments are revealed.

I miss the animal companions I had in Minneapolis. Don’t get me wrong–I love watching rats and mice while waiting for the train, and the random birds and squirrels that visit my ‘back yard’–but they just don’t compete against Esther Eve and Max/Meowx (the best cat ever). If you’re in MPLS and you come across either of these fine animal specimens, give them a scratch under the chin for me.

Wednesday nights were unofficially ‘dude nights’ for the longest time. We’d celebrate by going to the Town Talk Diner, hands-down the best drinking establishment in the Twin Cities. Proof is below.

This all happened behind the bar. I think I’ve proved my point.

Minneapolis = lots of time wasted. Not wasted in the bad ‘I didn’t get anything done’ sense, but rather in the good ‘I can’t get anything done because my blood alcohol level is waaaaay too high, so I’m just going to laugh and dance with my friends’ sense.

Remember when we’d go dancing at First Avenue pretty much every Saturday? That was fun.

Or better yet, remember when we’d have our own dance parties at home? That was fun, too.

The best was a party at someone else’s house–no clean up! My favorite part of this video is yelling ‘YOU SUCK’ at a failed limbo. I believe this was at Jen’s house. I also believe Tucker passed out along the side of the house, on a patch of ice.

Sunday dinners, oh how I miss thee. I tried them out for a bit in NY, but I realized it works a lot better when you have a master chef and a 3,000 square foot warehouse to entertain in…

On the 8th day, Tucker and EC begot an awesome warehouse space, for pennies.

We knew at once it was going to be the future home of Tucker’s ramp.

And thus the winter began, dominated by construction.

The majority of work was finished by New Year’s, in which Tucker and EC opened their home to the public with a New Year’s party. It was mildly attended.

I’m gonna go straight for nostalgia this week–I’m currently missing the hell out of my friends and family in Minneapolis, so I figured I’d share some choice gems from the archive. First up: Chicago trip, completely hung over. Enjoy.