Photo booths & People & Photo booth People
I am sure I have met other Russian people before, but I met a Russian man on Saturday. He showed up with a woman named Bre and this other man, named Misha, while dropping off a film photobooth. He walked into my work’s studio with a lit cigarette and asked “Where is the photobooth going?” His question was delivered an entitled matter of factness I assume has been innate to him his whole life.
Bre, the Russian, and Misha all know each other because they all own, restore, and work on vintage film photo booths. There are only about 300 working film photo booths in North America and the community that maintains them seem to all know each other–or at least Bre who lives in Connecticut, the Russian who lives in Sherman Oaks, and Misha who lives in San Francisco all know each other.
The photobooth from 1963 got dropped off and the trio began to cultivate the chemicals and get the booth ready. Bre used to be a wedding photographer and some years back bought her first photobooth. She now owns about 30 that are scattered throughout the US and no longer photographs weddings. One of her booths is at the Knockout. The Russian man owns a few more than she does and has a partner in New York. He owns the one at 4100 Bar in Los Angeles and told me that one is his money maker because “Two Chinese girls made a tiktok and the booth went viral.” He also told me he does not like San Francisco because the people here “are fake and there are a ton of soy boys.” I told him that I think there are more fake people in Los Angeles to which he agreed, but he rebutled “there are more soy boys in San Francisco. I hate soy boys.” I found it amusing to hear the words soy boys in a Russian accent pronounced with ultimate conviction. He also told me that he used to be a wound care nurse and that “so many celebrities’ asses sat” in the very booth that was in front of me “even Beyoncé.” He also mentioned that Misha, “is a good guy but I do not agree with the politics of his employer.”
I recognized Misha. At first I thought it was because he looked like every San Franciscan man over 60 that I want to get to know better. He has a silver bowl cut, wore loafers, straight leg jeans, and a perfect moss green button up. I asked him, “Do you work on the booths on Haight?” He does and I realized that he gave me a free photo strip token some weeks back. We got to talking. He showed me vintage cameras he restored and gave me a recommendation for a camera shop (it is called Glass Key and he told me to ask for Gordon or Matt and to tell them I know Misha).
For the hour or so that the photobooth was getting set up they showed me the mechanics of it. It was mostly the Russian and Misha explaining to me how it works. Photo booths have quite a few reservoirs of chemicals that the paper gets dipped into to develop the images. There is a rotating claw that dips the strips into the correct developers before dropping the strip in the gutter on the outside of the booth.
I learned that the Russian is the go-to man in the world when it comes to fixing and maintaining vintage photobooths. He used to manufacture mechanical parts of booths. Both Misha and the Russian reiterated to me that when photobooths went digital, film photo booths fell out of fashion and that if you currently maintain film photo booths it is a labor of love.
I got the biggest kick out of this microcosm that is film photo booth people. Misha talked to me about film photography as if I carried the same knowledge he does. The Russian told me that if I ever run into him again he owes me a T-Shirt. And Bre told me she is fixing up two booths at the moment.
Life is funny and not that serious and it is important to write things down so you do not forget about the times like being 18 in Paris when bartenders tell you, “you are just like that Strokes song ‘Barely Legal” or the other times like being 19 in Los Angeles and wandering into an art gallery meeting a guy named Wickett. There are other times too when you are 22 years old in Alaska and a woman in an RV park says the words, “Life is a good place too.” Sometimes you help a blind man on his birthday get onto the bus only for it to be the rapid line so then you have to help him off of the bus and wait for the 38 non rapid line and help him back on. There are also humbling times like stepping in gum or tripping infront of no one or showing up to a party full of strangers. There are mornings where you regret the last gin and tonic, but the sun is out and you are alive and the Pacific Ocean is only a few minutes away. There are bridges to cross and recross and self portraits in photo booths to pose for because you are chasing something that does not have a name and you only exist now today, not tomorrow.
