Ten Years of June 23rd!

Today is a special day! It's been ten years since my friend Emily and I took our first photobooth pictures together.  Before June 23, 2003 I had only used a photobooth a handful of times. Something about that particular day inspired me to start actively collecting/ art making.

By June 23, 2004, Emily and I realized how fundamental those original pictures were to my collection so we decided to re-enact them and we've been doing it ever since.

After high school, I moved to Calgary and Emily moved to Halifax, so we started taking the photos bi-annually, during our winter breaks in Edmonton. We also took long distance photos, where we took our halves respectively and sent them to each other. In 2011, I moved to Halifax, where Emily still lives, which made the series a little simpler.

This is my half of the collection, Emily's pictures are of us with big smiles and with monster faces. This year we took the photos early when Emily visited Montreal, it was the first time we ever took them twice in a row, because as you can see, the booth was in need of a chemical change in the second last photo.

It's sad to say, but in two years colour photobooths will almost entirely disappear. (The paper hasn't been manufactured since 2007 and it's projected to run out by summer 2015.) But I'm hopeful that Emily and I will find a way to keep our tradition alive.