Photo Booth

I was going through a load of old boxes (I've been here for over a year now and still not fully unpacked), looking for something that's not overly important anymore. I stumbled on an old photograph, you know the type, it was taken in a photo booth, four pictures in a strip. I figure I must have been nine at the time and it was a school trip to France, it cost us ten francs (that's about 1.5 Euros in 2day'z spk). The memory's a bit vague and I can't even remember my friend's name but we walk in a take four different pictures and then wait five minutes for it to develop, it looked like fun.

Fast forward x years to the last time I had to take a passport sized photo (I think it was for a ski pass but don't hold me to that). You sit down in the booth, look at the birdy and wait, one flash later and if you're happy with it, click 'ok' and out pops a print with four copies of the same picture (one in each corner, it's not even a strip!)

It's all digital so how hard would it be to have the machine take four pictures and print them out, there's no reason why the pictures have to be the same! Technically, it'll cost exactly the same to print four of the same or four different ones, so why not have this feature in modern photo booths?

The cynic in me tells me that this is because, if you wanted four different pictures, you would have to pay four times. I remember, out of shear boredom (or amusement), we would make a small visual 'story strip', it was good fun and I really believe that the kids of today are missing out on this simple pleasure. Bring them back I say! Call me a dinosaur but aren't people saying things like “let's give the hoodies something to do”? I'm not saying old-style photo booths would help tackle the hoody/loitering problem but, at the very least, it would give me something to do.