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Parts for all of the machines in the museum haven\u2019t 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\u2019s rarely an easy fix. They often need to reverse engineer a modern solution, and restoring the new color analog booth was no different.\u00a0<\/p>\n
![\"The]()
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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.<\/p>\n
Bront\u00eb Wittpenn\/S.F. Chronicle<\/p>\n
Shapiro explained that they were essentially \u201creinventing the wheel\u201d 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.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s clear that the demand for such restoration innovation exists.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople have been loving it,\u201d Hiett said. \u201cThere\u2019s an inherent quality in the paper that really makes you look good. \u2026 It\u2019s softer and it\u2019s warmer.\u201d<\/p>\n
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.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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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.<\/p>\n
Bront\u00eb Wittpenn\/S.F. Chronicle<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s nice having a physical memory instead of something on your phone,\u201d said 21-year-old\u00a0Julissa Esparza, who traveled from the East Bay with her boyfriend Matthew Pena, 20, to snap some photos with their cat, Junie. \u00a0<\/p>\n
Co-owner Doug Ellington said such a crowd has become normal for the free-to-enter museum during the week \u2014 even more on the weekends, when lines are out the door.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n
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.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a business owner, it\u2019s been a dream come true,\u201d Ellington said. \u201cI\u2019ve 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.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Restoration specialist Jack Shapiro, from left, Photo Booth Museum co-owner Doug Ellington and lead technician Carter\u00a0Hiett stand in front of the Castro storefront in San Francisco on May 5.<\/p>\n
Bront\u00eb Wittpenn\/S.F. Chronicle<\/p>\n
Ellington and his colleague Matt\u00a0Dewalt co-founded Photomatica in 2010, restoring and renting out old photo booths across the city.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI think with the whole digital versus analog revolution, digital made everything super convenient and super accessible,\u201d Hiett said. \u201cIn the pursuit of that convenience, we lost something of having a tangible artifact.\u201d<\/p>\n
Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n
The Treasure Island-based company has permanent booths at Amoeba Music in Haight-Ashbury, El Rio in the Mission and Union Square\u2019s 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The San Francisco location has been such a success that they opened a Los Angeles photo booth museum in July 2025.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe hype is real,\u201d Ellington said. \u201cWhen people come here, the laughs are real, the joy is real.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Emily]()
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Emily and Ruby Nguyen turn their photos into key chains at the Photo Booth Museum in San Francisco on May 5.<\/p>\n
Bront\u00eb Wittpenn\/S.F. Chronicle<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Julissa Esparza takes pictures for her 21st birthday with her cat\u00a0Juni in an analog photo booth at the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":659816,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[228,226,2224,241076,227,229,88,5284],"class_list":["post-659815","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-arts-and-entertainment","tag-arts-and-exhibits","tag-artsanddesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-san-francisco"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659815","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=659815"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659815\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/659816"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=659815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=659815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=659815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}