From vintage to viral: Photo booths are making a comeback in the Bay Area
It's a developing trend where old-school charm meets today's selfie culture.
Photo booths, those clunky, once ubiquitous machines, are making an unexpected comeback.
"There's something about the lighting or the way that the photo is created that makes you look 10 times better than you actually look," said Kayla Kane, a 26-year-old content creator.
According to Kane, vintage photo booths are becoming popular among teenagers and 20-somethings looking for that authentic unfiltered moment.
"You have one try and you're done. You can't be Kim Kardashian taking 500 selfies," she said.
Walk into Photoworks, an analog photography shop in San Francisco, on a weekday morning, and it will feel like stumbling into a trendy after hours club.
Store owner David Handler said ever since he brought in the booth in May, his shop has been flooded with gen Zers.
"These people just keep swarming in here all day all the time all because of this," he said smiling.
Doug Ellington, the cofounder of Photo-Matica, a San Francisco-based company that owns and operates more than 200 booths across the country, said interest spiked only recently, after a swell of viral TikToks made them cool again.
"I didn't expect that it would take off like this with lines at a photo booth. That's kind of a business owner's dream," he said.
As for Kane, she couldn't wait to expose her followers to this catchy new trend.