Life Development
I’ve been wanting to check out this vintage photo booth museum called Photomatica in the city for some time and I finally got to see what the hype was all about! It was so much fun yet different from today’s photo booths, theres no screen to see whats in frame, no count down to know when the flash is coming, and it actually takes a good five minutes for your photos to be developed! [One thing that I found interesting was that the photos even came out wet from true film development.]
Comparing the older photo booths with the more recent ones, theres something about the vintage photo booths that captures ingenuity, a feeling, and the essence of our character during that exact time the flash goes off.
No photoshop, no curation, and the final development is what you get. You don’t like it? Give it another shot.
To me, stepping in to each photo booth reflected stepping in to different life opportunities to try something new, to try to develop something you can create by experiencing a feeling, time, and capturing who we in the moment and a chance to create something for our future selves to look back on and saying “I remember when…”.
In retrospect, here’s what I learned during my visit there:
1.) Invest.
In a photo booth: With a little investment (of $2-$6) you have the opportunity to take physical snapshots of our memories to hold on to for maybe the rest of your lifetime if you wanted.
In life: Put in time and a little money to invest in yourself, whether it’s in to your passions, what boosts our confidence, and anything that might help our growth.
2.) Take that extra step.
In a photo booth: Stepping in to it, its just you in that booth, curtains closed, no judgement on who you want to be in there, no fear of expression. When in the booth, you get a few blinks of a blue light to signal when the photo would be captured (I couldn’t even tell you how many blinks it was), to then feeling the sudden warmth from the photo flash, wait a little while for the development and hope for the best results!
In life: It only takes one step to take towards your opportunities, experience the journey you’re walking in to, and plan out how you want to design it. How do you want your memories to look for your future self to look back on?
3.) Give it your best shot.
In a Photo Booth: Even though there’s no screen to see what the outcome looks like, strike a few of your best poses within the time you’re in there and hope for the best.
In life: We might find ourselves hesitant to make that small investment maybe in starting a project you’ve always wanted to do, or prolonging the time to plan because we’re afraid of embarrassing ourselves due to the fear of failing. Its okay to challenge ourselves to show up in places out of our comfort zone, otherwise we’ll never know what life we’re capable of creating if we don’t step in and give it a try.
4.) The flash before your eyes.
This is where what happens in the photo booth meets the physical experience of your life. You feel the warmth from the flash capturing your energy at that moment, emotion, character, potential, simply a stamp of your whole being in that exact second of your life’s time.
5.) Be patient to see the development.
In a photo booth: Coming from the technology a vintage photo booth has, the photos took some time to develop so while waiting, I got to check out the other booths, people watch, and take a walk around exploring the rest of the museum.
In Life: We can grow impatient waiting for our results, but give it some time to appreciate the walk through it and with patience, we’ll finally get to see the development of the whole picture.
Before I knew it, I heard the people who went after us say “oh thats someone else’s picture” while they were leaning towards the little hole where the photos dispense from, I realize that those pictures are only for me to take. No one else cared for whats in that developed photo, as its not their picture they were waiting on to be developed. No one can tell that story behind that photo better besides who’s in it. It’s no ones else’s picture to tell but my own.
As I picked it up, I scanned through each photo frame and some made me smile, some made me laugh and some made me want to take a re-do in another booth, but each frame made the whole photo strip that much more unique and interesting!
The most imperfect photo strips seem to be my personal favorites and memorable ones! No need to filter, adjust, or make AI edit edits. Nowadays it seems theres some sort of obsession about being perfect, making processes quicker, and just the need to be accepted by how people view us to define our development in our life. The imperfections of our life is what gives us character, emotion, and that ingenuity. All the pieces that make us special, and thats our very own story to share, no one else’s. Its worth it to have patience while your life pictures develop. Only after your pictures have developed is when you’ll see how life flashes so quickly, we only have our experiences and memories to refer to our development. As cliche as it sounds, the best things in life indeed do take time.
In hindsight, every photo we take is always a once in a life time shot, we’ll never have that same exact shot again because we’re constantly becoming a different version of ourselves at every continuous moment so no need to be the “perfect model”, just step in to that opportunity, and remember to always give it your best shot.
