Photo booth fun for rent

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This article was published 07/07/2015 (3945 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A local start-up business is bringing the fun and flair of the 1950s back to the party scene.

Flashbulb Memories, which offers vintage photo booth experiences,  launched in June 2014 when St. James resident Gilles Messier began searching for an original wedding gift for his sister.  

He remembered that whenever he returned to Winnipeg from studying mechanical engineering at Ottawa’s Carleton University he and his sister would jump into the photo booth at the airport to take a few goofy pictures.

“We sort of have a chronology of photos from all the years I was in university,” Messier said. “So, when it came time for my sister to get married last year, I thought ‘Why don’t I make a photo booth for the wedding?”

Messier created a collapsible, 1950s-style photo booth, operated by a foot pedal, and took it to Victoria Beach for the wedding. His sister certainly appreciated the gift, and  the wedding guests couldn’t seem to get enough of the old-fashioned contraption.  

“It was a hit, everyone loved it,” Messier said. “We ran out of photos after about two hours. We bought 200 sheets of photo paper and everyone burned straight through it.”

Messier’s initial photo booth was a rather basic model, without many special features.  However, when family friend and computer engineering student Eric Johnson gave the machine a closer look, he saw plenty of potential to make a few digital upgrades.

Shortly after the wedding, Messier and Johnson, who lives in Southdale, pooled their funds, expertise and spare time to develop a more efficient yet still vintage-inspired model.

“It turned out in the end to be a wonderful compromise between 21st century technology and 20th century design,” Johnson said.

Flashbulb Memories is now a photo booth rental business targeting variety of social events from weddings to socials, even retirement parties. The booth can now be configured to take photos in black-and-white or with different filters and colour tinting options. It will print one, two or four pictures on 4 x 6-inch sheet in under a minute.

Whoever rents the booth can choose if they would like to have their names and email addresses printed on the bottom of each photo sheet. Photo captions can also be added.

“Because our booth is fully digital, there’s a flash drive inside that collects all the photos taken with the booth,” Johnson said.

“We give that to whoever rented it so at the end of the wedding, say, we give that to the couple, they have a USB drive and can go through all the crazy photos the next day.”

Messier says the flash drive allows the company to accommodate those running events on tighter budgets.

Flashbulb Memories can eliminate the print option and simply post the photos on a photo sharing website the next day, and the entire album can be accessed digitally.

To find out more about Flashbulb Memories, visit flashbulbmemories.ca