Step right up, there’s a new photo booth in town — this time in color.
Vintage Vegas Photobooth, an owner/operator couple of analog photo booths, opened its very own “booth room” at 3261 S. Highland Drive, Suite 614. Victoria Hogan and Stephen Fetterusso have been bringing the old-fashioned photo experiences to Las Vegas bars and businesses for about five years. Now they’re bringing something new to the market: a color photo booth.
The grand opening event on July 14 saw over 300 attendees, said Hogan and Fetterusso. The booth room proves, at least, one thing: there is an audience for analog.
The opening of the experiential retail storefront brings the total number of analog photo booths in Las Vegas to eight, thanks to Hogan and Fetterusso. The two photo booths, one color and one black-and-white, in the room are on loan from their mentor and fellow technician Mike Rybak of Photo Illusion in Los Angeles.
Hogan and Fetterusso said they wanted to open a booth room to interact more with their customers. The room is attached to their existing warehouse, where they spend a lot of time fixing up the machines.
“All of our booths live in locations that we don’t spend all day at,” said Hogan. “So we thought it would be nice to be able to have somebody that’s present that can coach people on how to use a photo booth if they’ve never used one before.”
Black-and-white strips cost $8 and color strips cost $10. Current operating hours are noon to 10 p.m Thursday to Monday. All ages are welcome, as well as well-behaved furry friends.
While there, people can snap pictures and take home the strip as a souvenir, as well as have them scanned and sent to their device.
The color booth is an especially unique addition because of its rarity. According to the couple, the paper was discontinued in the early 2000s, but people in the photo booth community are helping to reverse its near extinction.
“It’ll probably be back,” said Fetterusso about color photo booths.
But don’t overlook the black-and-white strips, which have “Vegas Baby” branded on them, a small surprise from mentor Rybak.
“A lot of people have really already been bringing in their birth announcements with their sonograms and stuff, which has been really cute,” said Hogan.
Currently, no more booths are planned, but Hogan said “if another vintage photo booth came across our path, we would buy it.” And, the booths are not cheap, costing around the price of a used car, they said.
Fetterusso said Vintage Vegas Photobooth’s goal is to streamline its operations and train techs to service the photo booths around town. The couple’s machines can be found at Cornish Pasty Co., The Dustland Bar, Charleston Antique Mall, The Cosmopolitan and two at Sure Thing Chapel, which Hogan owns. All of them are public, with the exception of Sure Thing Chapel, which is reserved for couples tying the knot.
Inside the machine
Inside a vintage photo booth is essentially a mini dark room.
Before stepping in, customers should make sure the green indicator light is on. It means the machine is ready to make a new photo strip.
Customers then can tap their card or insert cash into the machine. Then there will be a series of clicks, which means the machine is gearing up and engaging the camera.
When it’s ready, a series of four red lights will come on, telling the customer to pose. While this is happening, a camera is taking a picture and exposing it onto a piece of paper.
But once the customers get out, that’s when the magic happens.
The film strip is then dipped into a series of seven different chemicals, which develops the photos into the final product. So, be careful when pulling the strip out, it is wet.
Patience is a virtue when it comes to the machines, taking around 2½ minutes to deliver a photo.
The photos have a distinctive look to them, with dark contrasts and smoothing effect to the skin on black-and-white strips and the color strips having pastel hues, which Hogan and Fetterusso agree is part of the allure.
“I think people just want a little bit of nostalgia, and I think that this is the quickest, easiest way to get it,” said Hogan. “There’s just something that’s different about getting a real photo versus a digital photo.”
Contact Emerson Drewes at edrewes@reviewjournal.com. Follow @EmersonDrewes on X.
