Photo Booth Lament

I am in Washington D.C. this week for work, and it is swell. During the workday I am in and out of various archives looking at pictures, poring over documents, and meeting other people in my field. In the evenings I return to my sublet and get tons of work done that I've been putting off (and also blogging that I've been putting off). The only other person I know in town is the woman from whom I am renting a room, and she is busy packing to move next week. The only things I brought with me are my laptop and clothes. This leaves me free to sit quietly and think in the evening without feeling guilty about how I should be out having drinks with so-and-so or cleaning my apartment or going to the gym. Not that I mind these things, but it's nice to just shove them aside for seven days and attend to other matters.

I was here last summer, in the very same sublet, but for a much longer stay.  I spent each morning and afternoon looking at photographs in the lovely study room in the Library of Congress, furiously taking notes and jotting down ideas and generally having a good time of it. But after hours of careful looking, I always needed a little time out to recharge before heading back to the sublet or going out with friends (I know more people here last year). For me, a bona fide city rat, the best space to regroup was always the most chaotic, and so just about every day I would drag my ass through swampy 105 degree weather to Union Station, sit down with a raspberry lemon smoothie, and do the wretched Metro crossword puzzle and process what I'd seen that day. Where possible, I always sat at the same table in the lower level under some stairs, because it offered a great view of the Presidential Photo Booth.

Old routines are hard to break, and so today when I left the National Gallery I walked to Union Station and went to my old table, only to find that the photo booth was no longer there. This particular photo booth was not really a true "booth" in the first place; it was digital and had a big green screen monitor that allowed others to watch the sitter getting his or her picture made. It was presidential insofar as the sitter posed in a tableau with the president of her or his choice, provided that she or he chose George H.W. Bush or Barack Obama. Most of the people partaking in this activity were evidently politically left-leaning; I watched scores of kids throwing up the peace sign with Obama and Michelle or pretending to moon W.  The photo historian in me wondered what scholars in my field would think a century from now if they found a cache of these pictures at auction, or in someone's attic, or in some weird archive. What do they tell us about vernacular photography now? The fact that there wasn't a curtain built into the kiosk is of course telling; no phone booths, no photo booths now. Everything is just loud and out there and public in 2011 in a way that it was not even twenty years ago.

I harbor secret hopes that they simply moved the photo booth, and so tomorrow after a triumphant (?) return to the LC I shall search for it. But probably the company folded, which tells us as much about photography in the present as politics in America right now, I think. Looks like I'm going to have to amend my routine for the next few.