Squeeze into a photo booth for a Valentine’s Day smooch

There are many great places in the world to steal a kiss — at bus shelters and on front porches; under umbrellas and in the back row at the movies.

But sharing a smooch in a photo booth takes things to another level.

“You get to go into like this tiny box together. It’s very personal,” said Andrew Wills, who was visiting San Francisco’s recently opened Photo Booth Museum by Photomatica with his girlfriend Jade Pineda on a recent Saturday.

“There’s a curtain. You don’t feel judged. And it’s really fun that I got to let loose and just be goofy,” Pineda said.

The perfect tiny space for romance

Photo booths have been around for a century. And they’re still popular — especially when it comes to romance.

“The photo booth is an intimate space where couples can be spontaneous and candid with their romantic feelings and affections,” said Barbara Levine, who runs Project B, a vintage photography archive, and is the author of the book People Kissing: A Century of Photographs. “The resulting strip of photos — none of which can be deleted — instantly becomes a timeless physical souvenir of people in a moment of connection.”

In the run-up to Valentine’s Day, the Photo Booth Museum was packed with young couples and groups squeezing into the storefront space’s four working vintage machines, dating back to the 1940s. (The oldest photo booth in the museum’s possession is a rare 1930s Photomatic, but that one wasn’t functioning at the time of reporting this story.)

Wills and Pineda were first-timers at the museum. As they waited for their strip to emerge from a 1958 Auto-Photo Model 12 machine, they shared a bit of their story. The pair said they met eight years ago in college.

“There was a guys group and a girls group. And we kind of melded our freshman year,” Wills said. “And we had a friendship from there that turned into a romance,” said Pineda.

Pineda said she and Wills planned to put their strip in a frame or on the fridge at home. “I could definitely see it being a Valentine’s tradition,” Pineda said.

A romantic tradition

Capturing romantic moments in a photo booth was already a tradition for other couples visiting the museum.

“We’ve done them in Los Angeles; we’ve done them in San Francisco; we’ve done them all around,” said Syl Cole. “So we’ve got a little bit of a collection going.”

Cole and his partner Ashley Abaya said they met at church two-and-a-half years ago.

“You can link certain strips to certain day trips, or weekend trips, or whatever. It’s like a timeline,” Cole said.

“They just capture cool memories,” Abaya said.

Photo booths have shown up in movies like Amélie and Elemental, TV shows such as New Girl, and songs by the likes of U2 (“Miami”), Beck (“I Think I’m in Love”) and “Photo Booth” by Tony Evans Jr. Near Valentine’s Day, they’re a regular presence on social media platforms including Instagram and TikTok.

“Photo booths often serve as vehicles for emotional memory,” said Esther Zuckerman, the author of the book  Falling in Love at the Movies: Rom-Coms from the Screwball Era to Today. “It’s a trope to go back and see that photo and be heartsick, because it feels like a flash in the pan, a snapshot in time.”

Touchy-feely technology

The museum’s primary audience is people in their teens and 20s who’ve grown up snapping endless photos on their phones. For them, a visit to the museum also provides the rare chance to take pictures they can hold.

“I love having the tangible memory of just doing something fun,” said Kiera Hernandez.

“The photo booths offer the vintage feel,” said Hernandez’s partner Bryan Ruvalcaba. “It’s fun to try to capture the old ways that people used to do it.”

When the couple’s photos slide out of the nearby machine, they’re not all perfect.

“We got one that looks kind of strange because we weren’t ready,” Ruvalcaba said, peering at the images.

No matter. Hernandez said she plans to keep the strip anyway as part of her growing collection chronicling the two years of the relationship.

“I’ll Just keep it in my memory book,” she said.

Ruvalcaba added they’re planning to celebrate Valentine’s Day itself in another traditional way.

“I’m taking you to a restaurant,” he said to Hernandez. “It’s a surprise though, so I’m not going to say which one.”

Audio and digital story edited by Jennifer Vanasco; audio mixed by Chloee Weiner; web story produced by Beth Novey.