Photo Booths in New Orleans

The Photo Booth Scene in New Orleans

New Orleans has 10 verified analog photo booths spread across a city designed for the kind of late-night, chemically enhanced spontaneity that photo booths were made for. The machines are concentrated in the neighborhoods where New Orleans culture is most concentrated: the French Quarter's bar-and-balcony corridors, the Marigny's music-drenched stretch of Frenchmen Street, and the Garden District's classic neighborhood bars. A photo booth strip from New Orleans looks different from any other city's — the light is different, the people are different, and the context (usually 2am, usually post-set, usually in a bar older than the person using it) produces images that carry the city's specific atmosphere. New Orleans has the earliest continuous photo booth culture in the American South: the French Quarter's penny arcade history goes back to the early 20th century, and the city's bars have maintained analog machines through wars, hurricanes, and the internet. The booths on Frenchmen Street have documented the city's music scene for decades — the strips from the Spotted Cat or d.b.a. show musicians whose names ended up in history books. In the Marigny and Bywater, booths in neighborhood bars serve a community that has resisted the city's gentrification with quiet determination, and the strips reflect that endurance. New Orleans photo booth culture is not about trends. It is about continuity.