100 years ago, Anatol Marco Josepho, a Russian immigrant to the US, invented the world’s first fully automated, coin-operated photo booth. When it opened its doors near Times Square in New York City, the “photomaton” – which produced pictures from a carefully orchestrated mechanical darkroom inside – was an instant hit. A reported 280,000 people lined up to use it in the first six months.
To mark 100 years, nine writers shared their favourite photo booth pictures, and we asked Guardian readers to show us their favourites and tell us what they mean to them. Here are some of their stories.
‘I’m older, my hair is greying, but when Johnny looks at me, part of him still sees the 20-year-old girl he was falling in love with in the photo booth’
I met Johnny through friends in 1988; I wrote my name and telephone number on a parking ticket. We hadn’t been dating long when we went to a movie and there was a photo booth. We were still in that awkward dating phase, but we hopped in.
Now we’ve been together for 37 years, and married for 35. The beauty of being with someone since you were young is that you see each other, in many ways, as those same kids falling in love. I’m older, I’ve had two kids, my hair is greying, but when Johnny looks at me, a part of him still sees the 20-year-old girl he was falling in love with in the photo booth.
There was something so special and meaningful about photo booths back then. Today’s ubiquity of digital photos detracts from how significant it was to capture a moment in time – to freeze it for posterity – and tuck the strip of four photos into a scrapbook or put on your dresser.
Johnny still carries the parking ticket with my name and number in his wallet to this day. It has moved from wallet to wallet, and survived occasional washings, but it’s still there. Jackie Wesson, 57, attorney and law professor, Alabama, US
‘This photo captured the fleeting nature of children growing up’
In this photo, I’m 40. My daughter had just turned one, I was 10 weeks pregnant with my second daughter, and we were in Edmonton airport on our way to Rome on a family holiday. This photo was taken near the departure gate as we waited to board our flight.
When our daughters were little, my now ex-husband and I went to photo booths with them whenever we could: photo booths are instinctively fun, irreverent, built for moments of joy and freedom. They captured the fleeting nature of children growing up, and many of these strips remain some of our most cherished photos.
Having children had always been immensely important to me but I didn’t have my daughters until late in life. I ended up having them close together, and even though my second daughter is not visible here, I like to say that my complete joy in being a mother twice shines through.
I’ve never felt more “me” than in this photo, and I’m so happy that it was taken in a photo booth: natural, unrehearsed, four different shots. Paula Wade, 55, writer and designer, Alberta, Canada
‘She went in for a kiss as I was trying to ask: “Will you marry me?”’
My girlfriend Ellie and I moved to Berlin together in 2020. During lockdown, we loved just walking around the streets together – and the city is dotted with all these amazing ancient photo booths. Proper analogue ones, where you don’t see what you’re going to get. They can be a real gamble, but that’s the magic.
We tried to get as many photo booth pictures as we could. By the time we moved back to London a couple years ago, we’d built quite a collection.
When I decided I was going to propose, I wanted to do it somewhere sort of private, but fun. And we had a trip to Berlin planned. My friends thought my idea of a photo booth was perfect.
All day I was nervously trying to navigate past one, but didn’t manage it until after dinner – when I convinced her to take a detour on the way home from seeing friends. She was totally shocked! She had no idea it was coming.
In the first image, I’m faffing trying to get ring out my pocket. In the second, Ellie went in for a kiss as I was trying to ask: “Will you marry me?” In the third she’s shocked at seeing the ring. And in the fourth: It’s a yes!
It was a bit chaotic, but I wouldn’t have had it any other way. That’s the charm of the photo booth: the chaos, unpredictability and fun. Laurence Dawes, 35, London, UK
‘It’s about 1976 in Penarth … and reassuring to see the bond I had with my mother’
It’s about 1976 in Penarth. It was a day at the seaside. My father was an artist and photographer who usually wandered off looking for inspiration while I had fun and laughter with my mother, Jane.
It’s my favourite because I found it in a box of belongings I had left behind in my home when I left at 18. My mother died when I was 21.
I found the photo strip about 35 years later, when I was clearing the house after my father’s death, in a tin in my childhood bedroom. My daughter, who was then 20, was with me when I found it. I just dissolved into tears.
It was so powerful, just this little folded-up bit of paper. It was reassuring to see the bond with my mother was evident in the pictures: how much she loved me, and how much fun we had. Although the photos made me sad after all this time, I’m so grateful I discovered it. Sara Dunn, 55, Lincolnshire, UK
‘This photo captures the urgency and fragility of gay love in the mid-80s’
It was the Christmas holidays in my first year at Leeds University in 1986. I had met a boy in the first term and we were dating.
He lived in Windsor and I lived in Wandsworth, London. Neither of us was out to our families at the time and homophobia was heightened in the buildup to section 28.
The iceberg/tombstone Aids campaign was just starting, and so gays were not only despised by many, but we were also feared.
He and I met up in central London and spent a day together, but we were unable to hold hands or demonstrate affection. When the time came for him to get his train home, we slipped into a photo booth so that we’d have pictures of each other – but also so that we could have some privacy to say goodbye to each other properly.
For me, this picture captures the urgency and fragility of gay love in the mid-80s.
Although our relationship lasted under a year, we remain close friends. We mean very different things to each other now, but our bond has endured. Matthew Hodson, 58, actor and HIV advocate, London
‘We had a good laugh at that photo’
The photo was taken in 2014 while I was on a sabbatical in Paris. We were passing through a part of the underground, I believe, and saw a photo booth, deciding it would be fun to get a quick picture. The photo shows my wife, Emma, and daughter, Madeleine, who was four or five months old at the time.
We all had a good laugh at the results from the photo booth, particularly the surprise on Madeleine’s face when the flash went off. In fact, I plan to use it as the cover of a book I am writing on the family history for Madeleine.
Madeleine, who is now 12 years old, loves the photo and finds it very funny, especially her double chin. We look at it often, as it’s on the door of our refrigerator. Dougald O’Reilly, late 50s, archaeologist, Canberra, Australia
‘We look back upon that time with such nostalgia and fondness’
This photo is of us at our wedding in September 2024. We had hired a photo booth for the reception, which was a lot of fun – you can see my wife “scissoring” my nose.
Just a couple of months later, in November, we found out we were expecting twins, so that domestic bliss of being married was very short before we were preparing for parenthood.
The photo strip was taken at our friends’ wedding earlier this year and neatly captures a whimsical moment in our lives: a snapshot of peak merriment. My wife, Aimee, was in her third trimester, and she had that perpetual maternal glow, and I was levitating at our fast track to seeming adulthood. We look back upon that time with such nostalgia and fondness. And it wasn’t even that long ago.
These fancy-free shenanigans and brouhahas live forevermore festooned on our fridge, which is like a photo album.
It’s a ceaseless party every time I gaze upon the pictures, and I can’t help but flail my limbs in dancerly glee every time I’m in the kitchen. Tommy Vinh Bui, 39, librarian, Los Angeles, California, USA
‘I felt a strong need to document us’
In the late 1990s my kid Max and I often cycled to the local five-and-dime store to hit up their photo booth after my cancer diagnosis. I felt a strong need to document “us” for Max’s sake, as he was so young – he wasn’t quite four at the time. I had a terrible prognosis and thought I was checking out soon. I have a stack of photos from the booth at that time.
My hair was just starting to grow back in these photos, and I was trying to experience my son and happiness and joy, and we do look happy and joyful in spite of it all. I love our intertwined hands and glee.
I had gone to a professional photographer, but didn’t like the photos of the two of us as they looked so stagnant and staged. I loved the spontaneity of photo booths – you never know exactly when the light is going to go, and they always capture something surprising or ridiculous.
Although the shop is long gone, I’m still so grateful for that photo booth.
Love can zero you into the moment and capture what is most real. I love this photo for doing just that. Stef McCargar, 64, Portland, Oregon, USA
The Photographers’ Gallery in London is marking the centenary of the photo booth with Strike a Pose: 100 Years of the Photobooth, until 22 February 2026
