Does your area still have any Photo Bugs?

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by JManc

Those one-hour deals at the drug stores usually resulted in shittier photos.

Perhaps.

But americans are probably the most fucking impatient sub-species of homo sapiens.

[38 Geary]

Originally Posted by llamaorama

Not really. Also I don't remember the photo huts. Based on the timeline they would have been headed to extinction when I was a young child, so maybe I saw one and our family went there but I wasn't paying attention I guess.

Same. These do not ring a bell at all. We got our photos processed at the local Walgreens on Irving St.

[mrnyc]

i recall a good few of those parking lot kodak fotomats were turned into coffeeshop kiosks initially around the columbus area. i thought that was a great use for them at the time. i dk if the structures are even still around anymore?

[mrnyc]

Originally Posted by xzmattzx

I pass this building in the back of a historic shopping plaza several times a month. Could this have been a photo hut? Or is it too big?

I vaguely remember these buildings when I was a little kid, and I think I remember my mom dropping off film one time (but who knows where).

This thread (and others once in a while) remind us that we should take pictures of everyday life. You never know when a way of life or a business will fall by the wayside. Modern things like kids looking down at their phones, someone trying to plug in a phone charger at a restaurant or bar, phone screen replacement stations at a mall, modern-day town centers, Amazon delivery drivers and trucks, last-leg restaurants like Friendly's, and so much more, are things we just overlook as part of life but we will tell younger generations about 30 years from now.

hard to say for sure, but i think that was once a fotomat. being an old plaza or mall its definitely sited in the right place to have been one.

[plinko]

Originally Posted by JManc

Those one-hour deals at the drug stores usually resulted in shittier photos.

1Hour by Michael Stroh, on Flickr

[jmecklenborg]

Originally Posted by JManc

Those one-hour deals at the drug stores usually resulted in shittier photos.

The difference between getting color photos developed at a Walgreen's or other 1-hour place versus an actual photo lab were in the printing of the photographs, not the development of the film. The C-41 processor was basically exactly the same no matter where you took film and a monkey could do it. I never worked one of these but I did develop film with what was called a JOBO processor, and it was a piece of cake. If I remember correctly, there were only two chemicals.

A Walgreen's probably had a printer with minimal abilities to adjust a print, but a pro lab usually had somebody who looked at each photo and either made adjustments on the fly (the later machines had screens) or they reprinted something if they knew they could get a better result. A pro lab likely also printed on higher quality paper. But the film itself would be no different since the C-41 machines were completely standardized and very simple to use.

[plinko]

^I worked in the photo lab at Walgreens in college (mid 90s). Super easy machines to use. They taught me in about 2 hours how to do everything on it. The strategy and policy was unless something was way off with the chemicals that would alter the colors, you printed whatever they dropped off. If they complained, then you could re-run it and do some minor alterations.

I've seen more childbirth pictures than I ever would care to.

[muertecaza]

Originally Posted by plinko

^I worked in the photo lab at Walgreens in college (mid 90s). Super easy machines to use. They taught me in about 2 hours how to do everything on it. The strategy and policy was unless something was way off with the chemicals that would alter the colors, you printed whatever they dropped off. If they complained, then you could re-run it and do some minor alterations.

I've seen more childbirth pictures than I ever would care to.

Haha, I worked at one in the 00s. You could always tell when you were gonna see boobs. "Yeah...not sure what's on this one..."

[JManc]

Originally Posted by jmecklenborg

The difference between getting color photos developed at a Walgreen's or other 1-hour place versus an actual photo lab were in the printing of the photographs, not the development of the film. The C-41 processor was basically exactly the same no matter where you took film and a monkey could do it. I never worked one of these but I did develop film with what was called a JOBO processor, and it was a piece of cake. If I remember correctly, there were only two chemicals.

A Walgreen's probably had a printer with minimal abilities to adjust a print, but a pro lab usually had somebody who looked at each photo and either made adjustments on the fly (the later machines had screens) or they reprinted something if they knew they could get a better result. A pro lab likely also printed on higher quality paper. But the film itself would be no different since the C-41 machines were completely standardized and very simple to use.

Hence why they are shittier photos; they are rushed and cheaply done. Walgreen's has some kid running the machine with little to no knowledge of photography while a pro lab does. Drug stores are/were great for simple snapshots but if you were shooting professionally, you sent them out to a lab. Unless you did your own developing.

[muppet]

Very cute - never heard of these before. They should be kept as is, perhaps theme up the 80s vintage too, and maybe repurposed. Everything from phone charging to ice cream, to coffee.

[suburbanite]

Not sure if there was ever something similar in Toronto. My earliest memories are of taking film from family vacations to the grocery store or Walmart.

It definitely was a more exciting experience than the current instantaneous delivery of photos. It was a family event to open up the package and see all of them for the first time.

[Comrade]

We used to have these in Salt Lake:

[jmecklenborg]

Originally Posted by JManc

Hence why they are shittier photos; they are rushed and cheaply done. Walgreen's has some kid running the machine with little to no knowledge of photography while a pro lab does. Drug stores are/were great for simple snapshots but if you were shooting professionally, you sent them out to a lab. Unless you did your own developing.

This somehow reminded me of the craziest photojournalism story I heard from the film days - this was back in the 70s and a photographer for my city's daily was assigned to photograph the President (not sure if it was Nixon, Ford, or Carter) as he stepped either on or off of Air Force 1, then fly in a chartered helicopter directly to the paper's printing press (which was about a mile from downtown in an industrial area), and slap the photo on the press as quickly as possible since the whole thing was being held for this photo. To achieve this the photographer claimed that he developed the film while flying in the helicopter. Now I think this story was embellished (it was told at the guy's funeral) but nevertheless it illustrates the great lengths necessary in the film days to make an image happen.

Photographs are definitely much less special in the digital era and dare I say have lost their magic. The weird thing is that it seems to me like old photographs have lost their magic a bit as well, maybe because we're all going through photo fatigue thanks to our phones and computers.

[MolsonExport]

Every mall had one of these in the 70s. Sometimes, there would be lineups to use them.

Remember the rotating/rising seat?

[suburbanite]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

Every mall had one of these in the 70s. Sometimes, there would be lineups to use them.

Remember the rotating/rising seat?

Isn't that just a photo booth? I was understanding it to be a place where you would get your own film developed, which I never personally saw as a kiosk in a mall or strip plaza.

[jmecklenborg]

Originally Posted by suburbanite

Isn't that just a photo booth? I was understanding it to be a place where you would get your own film developed, which I never personally saw as a kiosk in a mall or strip plaza.

A bar in my area still had a functioning photo booth until about 2012.

Apparently there are only about 100 still working:
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/photo-booth-turning-100-meet-people-keeping-alive-rcna184424

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by jmecklenborg

Apparently there are only about 100 still working:

Only 100 ledt? Like in the whole world? For real?

That's a little odd because I can think of two vintage photobooths that still work near me.

One is at an old-school mini-golf place up in a nearby burb that I take my kids to a couple times a year.

The other is at Village Tap, a neighborhood bar and grill about 1.5 miles south of me down in Roscoe Village.

[Xing]

There are so many still in Southern California. While I’m sure there are plenty in Illinois still around, I don’t think I’ve seen so many elsewhere. The majority I’ve seen are being used to sell everything from locks to cigarettes.

[JManc]

Originally Posted by jmecklenborg

This somehow reminded me of the craziest photojournalism story I heard from the film days - this was back in the 70s and a photographer for my city's daily was assigned to photograph the President (not sure if it was Nixon, Ford, or Carter) as he stepped either on or off of Air Force 1, then fly in a chartered helicopter directly to the paper's printing press (which was about a mile from downtown in an industrial area), and slap the photo on the press as quickly as possible since the whole thing was being held for this photo. To achieve this the photographer claimed that he developed the film while flying in the helicopter. Now I think this story was embellished (it was told at the guy's funeral) but nevertheless it illustrates the great lengths necessary in the film days to make an image happen.

Photographs are definitely much less special in the digital era and dare I say have lost their magic. The weird thing is that it seems to me like old photographs have lost their magic a bit as well, maybe because we're all going through photo fatigue thanks to our phones and computers.

You had 24-36 exposures per a roll of film and you had to make everyone of them count. Now, we take pictures of literally everything and never look at most of them.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by JManc

You had 24-36 exposures per a roll of film and you had to make everyone of them count. Now, we take pictures of literally everything and never look at most of them.

Someone's never been close to their phone storage limit but not ready to buy a new phone.