Caroline RobinsonSouth West

Kate Tyler Six strips of images from a photo booth. Strip one shows a woman wearing black trousers and a black tank top. She has a feathered mask on her face. There is a sign that says www.katetyler.co.uk. The second strip has four images of a woman, with short brown hair. Each picture of her has a different facial expression. The third image has a person with a mask over their face. The images are in black and white and the person is holding letters K, A, T and E. The fourth strip has a woman with shoulder length hair and she is on a blue background. She is also holding the letters K, A, T, and E. The fifth strip, the top image is a pink background, the second image is a woman's face cut off at the chin, the third image is a body wearing a grey top, and the last image is the continuation of the grey top. The last strip is black and white, with a woman wearing sunglasses on her head, facing different directions. Kate Tyler

Kate Tyler said photo booths had documented her life

An artist with a “lifelong, nerdy obsession” with photobooths is celebrating the 100 year anniversary of their existence.

Kate Tyler, who lives in Modbury, Devon, uses analogue photo booths to create her artwork.

She said she prefers them to digital booths because “there’s something really lovely about the quality of those pictures” and getting a “long strip of four pictures”.

She has also been able to “document all the way through my life” with photos of herself and her friends she started gathering from the age of 12.

“It’s not just me, there’s a few other people who also have a love of photo booths,” she said.

Earlier this year Ms Tyler set up a booth in Ashburton and 500 people came forward to have their photo taken.

Her passion also led her to take a trip to Riga in Latvia, so she could have her photo taken in the booth in the city’s bus station.

Ms Tyler said her interest started as a teenager when she “had a lot of fun with friends in the booths.”

“I guess when my friends were sensible and got bored of doing of doing that, I didn’t and I just carried on,” she said.

It has become harder for her as old-style booths have commonly been replaced by digital ones.

“It’s much harder now living in Devon because there aren’t any analogue photo booths in Devon so I have to travel to London or Manchester – there’s only a handful left in the UK.”

Kate Tyler A collage of photo booth strips. The overall image has a yellow background, there are white lines where the strips begin. On the left is an older woman wearing a red and black top and glasses, she is holding hands with the woman on the right, who has shoulder length brown hair and is wearing a dress. They are both looking forward. Kate Tyler

The photo booth was invented in 1925

The photo booth was invented in 1925 by Anatol Josepho and was based in New York, Ms Tyler said.

“That was at a time when photography was really out of reach for most people… so this made it very accessible.”

It was also a time when not everybody would have been able to have photos taken in a studio due to prejudices.

She said: “I’m thinking of people of colour, I’m thinking of the LGBT community, they wouldn’t have been welcome, whereas you pull that little curtain and, you know, anybody can be in there and take their pictures.”

Ms Tyler said she would be appearing on the One Show in January to discuss the anniversary.