The photobooth, as it is popularly called, was invented by commercial photographer Anatol Josepho in 1921.
In 2014, the Zimmerlli Art Museum in New Brunswick presented an exhibit titled "Striking Resemblance" that featured a mysterious assemblage of 445 photobooth images purchased from a New York City antique shop in 2012 showing the same man in snapshots taken from the 1930s through the 1960s.
The mystery was later solved, as noted by Janelle Griffith in this article posted on nj.com on June 23, 2014. The man in the images was Franklyn Swantek of New Boston, Mich., who owned Swantek Photo Service, known as "Michigan's largest operators and distributors of Photomatic." He took the self-portraits as test shots after service stops to mix the chemicals in the booths needed to develop photos.
The curious part of the story wasn't so much that the man took this matter-of-fact approach in his business; it was that he saved all 445 snaps. Perhaps it was because photobooth pictures were, and still are, keepsakes that people find difficult if not impossible to discard.
MORE: Vintage photos around New Jersey
The portable picture studios have become extremely popular at weddings and other events these days, but are most certainly nothing new; the technology dates back nearly a century.
Inventor of the photobooth Anatol M. Josepho posed for one himself in the 1920s with a pipe and his terrier. Courtesy of flickr.com According to a March 2008 article on telegraph.co.uk, the photobooth, as it is popularly called, was invented by commercial photographer Anatol Josepho (born Josephewitz in Russia in 1894) from blueprints he devised in 1921.
The article notes that "by September 1925 he had opened his Photomaton Studio on Broadway, between 51st and 52nd streets. Crowds, as many as 7,500 people a day, would line up to have their photos taken for 25 cents for a strip of eight: the place came to be known as 'Broadway's greatest quarter-snatcher.'"
Within a short time, the Photomatics had become popular 'quarter-snatchers' along the New Jersey shore as well. Resort areas from Seaside Heights to Cape May featured the booths in arcades, offering, in some instances, a strip of photos allowing for a series of poses or a single snapshot dispensed in a metal souvenir frame.
Norma Jeane Mortenson posed for one in 1938 in California; you know her better by the name given her by movie studios -- Marilyn. Courtesy of pinterest.com The photobooths eventually made their way to department stores and malls, offering an alternative to coin operated rides and toys in plastic bubbles dispensed like gumballs.
The popularity of the booths lay in the quick production of the picture; as Poloroid cameras became more affordable and widespread in the 1960s and 1970s, the novelty of an 'instant' photo from a booth declined.
Here's a gallery of photobooth pictures taken in New Jersey through the years. Perhaps you have some of your own in albums and drawers; send them in to ghatala@starledger.com for use in future galleries.
Greg Hatala may be reached at ghatala@starledger.com. Follow him on Twitter @GregHatala. Find The Star-Ledger on Facebook.