Julissa Esparza takes pictures for her 21st birthday with her cat Juni in an analog photo booth at the Photo Booth Museum in San Francisco on May 5.
Brontë Wittpenn/S.F. Chronicle
An unassuming 1,000-square-foot storefront in San Francisco has just become home to an ultrarare piece of photography history.
Photomatica’s photo booth museum, at 2275 Market St., is offering visitors the chance to pose in one of the only analog color photo booths in the country.
“The thing with these analog processes, like film and paper and chemistry, it all degrades over time. It doesn’t age well,” lead technician Carter Hiett told the Chronicle. “We wanted to find a way to bring back that great quality.”
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The original dead-stock counterparts have been out of production for roughly 20 years, so Hiett and restoration specialist Jack Shapiro got creative. Given the rarity of the booth, they remained rather secretive about the specifics of that process.
A color analog photo booth deposits a strip of images taken by Kelsey Schmidt at the Photo Booth Museum in San Francisco on May 5. The machine is one of the only analog color photo booths in the country.
Brontë Wittpenn/S.F. Chronicle
But they did share that they used a fresh mixture of chemicals to develop photos in the booth, as well as paper that was designed for direct positive development, which works with color negatives. They had to alter the booth to make it print a direct positive image for the customer, skipping the step of having a negative beforehand.
Photo Booth Museum by Photomatica: Noon-7 p.m. Mondays-Thursday; 10 a.m.-10 p.m. Fridays-Saturdays; 10 a.m.-7 p.m. Sundays. Free to enter, $7.50 per photo strip. 2275 Market St., S.F. www.photomatica.com
The booth was added to the museum in early May and is one of seven in Photomatica’s San Francisco space, which opened in December 2024. The museum now houses a total of six analog booths and one digital one, each charging $7.50 per strip.
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Parts for all of the machines in the museum haven’t been produced in about 35 years, making it even more important for Hiett and Shapiro to keep the machines clean and lubricated. When issues arise, there’s rarely an easy fix. They often need to reverse engineer a modern solution, and restoring the new color analog booth was no different.
The inside of a photo booth reveals a spider assembly at the Photo Booth Museum in San Francisco on May 5. The museum worked with a restoration specialist to get its analog color photo booth functional, since machines like that are now rare.
Brontë Wittpenn/S.F. Chronicle
Shapiro explained that they were essentially “reinventing the wheel” when starting the endeavor roughly a year ago. He and Hiett spent about three months completing extensive alterations inside the machine to get it to produce a direct positive image, without a negative in between.
It’s clear that the demand for such restoration innovation exists.
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“People have been loving it,” Hiett said. “There’s an inherent quality in the paper that really makes you look good. … It’s softer and it’s warmer.”
Even on a recent Tuesday afternoon, the Castro space drew a sizable crowd: a young couple and their cat, a group of soon-to-be college graduates, and other passersby who contributed to a constant flow of foot traffic in and out of the space.
Kitshia Zambrano Meza takes pictures in a photo booth while wearing a graduation sash at the Photo Booth Museum in San Francisco on May 5.
Brontë Wittpenn/S.F. Chronicle
“It’s nice having a physical memory instead of something on your phone,” said 21-year-old Julissa Esparza, who traveled from the East Bay with her boyfriend Matthew Pena, 20, to snap some photos with their cat, Junie.
Co-owner Doug Ellington said such a crowd has become normal for the free-to-enter museum during the week — even more on the weekends, when lines are out the door.
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In fact, the museum has become something of a social media sensation over the past year, with most visitors hearing about the space via TikTok or Instagram. Shapiro even noticed visitors from all over the world have been adding the museum to their San Francisco vacation itineraries, some stopping by with suitcases in hand on their way to the airport.
“As a business owner, it’s been a dream come true,” Ellington said. “I’ve personally been in love with these machines for close to 20 years, and I feel like through the power of social media, other people are falling in love with the same love I have for them.”
Restoration specialist Jack Shapiro, from left, Photo Booth Museum co-owner Doug Ellington and lead technician Carter Hiett stand in front of the Castro storefront in San Francisco on May 5.
Brontë Wittpenn/S.F. Chronicle
Ellington and his colleague Matt Dewalt co-founded Photomatica in 2010, restoring and renting out old photo booths across the city.
“I think with the whole digital versus analog revolution, digital made everything super convenient and super accessible,” Hiett said. “In the pursuit of that convenience, we lost something of having a tangible artifact.”
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The Treasure Island-based company has permanent booths at Amoeba Music in Haight-Ashbury, El Rio in the Mission and Union Square’s Hotel Zeppelin, among other businesses. But they had always dreamed of opening a museum to showcase some of the vintage photo booths they worked on.
The San Francisco location has been such a success that they opened a Los Angeles photo booth museum in July 2025.
“The hype is real,” Ellington said. “When people come here, the laughs are real, the joy is real.”
Emily and Ruby Nguyen turn their photos into key chains at the Photo Booth Museum in San Francisco on May 5.
Brontë Wittpenn/S.F. Chronicle