World's first watch

Aug 14, 2023

After seeing people so in love with watching me make tintypes, I decided to find a way for people to see their photos develop. — Ian Azariah

Inside an East Vancouver pub filled with war memorabilia sits a relic of the 1960s, a time when selfies were taken in the privacy of booths, behind velvet curtains.

What makes this analog photo booth at Hero’s Welcome pub unique from the hundreds still in operation worldwide is that users can peer inside the machine and watch as their images are being developed.

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This machine was lovingly restored by Ian Azariah who — after teaching himself the mechanics of the Canadian-made Auto Photo Model 17 five years ago — began devoting his time to show how those black and white captures are made within minutes.

“Allowing people to see inside the booth has meant they’re more patient and understanding, that these are not digital images, and they take time to process,” said Azariah.

“People are so used to our instantaneous digital age that a lot of times they were assuming the machine’s taking so long because it’s broken.”

The decision to customize the machine in December of 2021 was a difficult one, Azariah said.

“It’s something a lot of people view as like putting a body kit on a classic car — that it shouldn’t be altered because the machines are so rare.” He said only a handful of analog photo booths have been restored to working order for the Canadian public, while others sit out of sight in private collections.

But the 36-year-old, who operates a photography studio in Vancouver, found that sharing the imprinting process of the 1850s tintype craft was inspiring to his clients.

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“After seeing people so in love with watching me make tintypes, I decided to find a way for people to see their photos develop,” Azariah said.

Customers can tap their debit cards or push in eight loonies to have four frames captured and processed right before their eyes, with machinery that dips light-sensitive paper into a carousel of chemical tanks.

“I rigged up a custom-built window made of rubylith, which filters UV light so it’s safe for developing, and a safelight to increase the visibility of the process.”

The photo strip is delivered via a metal chute while still wet from the chemicals.

It’s not just those visiting the pub who use the rare photo booth.

“I get to see grandparents, parents and children visit to take photo after photo together, smiling. They are memories that are irreplaceable because there are physical copies of them,” said Azariah, who admitted his passion for photography was inherited.

“The reason I got into this work in the first place was because my father had a phenomenal photo album of us growing up.”

But there have been a host of challenges threatening the existence of the remaining analog photo booths, of which about 500 are in operation worldwide, according to a website that tracks them. The majority of others are digital, producing faster results at a cheaper cost.

“The Russian company that was making the light-sensitive paper stopped manufacturing it and it’s run out,” said Azariah, who has now managed to import light-sensitive strips from Czechoslovakia.

“People in the analog photo booth community were panicking that this was the end of analog, but we’ve figured it out with much tinkering,” said Azariah, who replenishes the developing chemicals weekly.

Last week Azariah modified Vancouver’s only other analog photo booth at a sister bar, The American, to accommodate the new paper stock.

Azariah is hopeful that a third analog photo booth, which he is in the process of restoring, will find a home inside the Vancouver Art Gallery.

“We’ve been in talks about it for a while now.”

Regardless, Azariah says he remains committed to acquiring and restoring as many of the analog photo booths as possible for the public’s enjoyment.

“I’ve worked in commercial photography, in the movie industry as a builder of three-dimensional motion capture systems …. I’ve done it all, but doing this and helping people capture those special physical moments has meant the most to me.”

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