Photo Booth

Placed in public spaces, the photo booth is a special place for exploring our identity. It is also a space for creativity where artists engage with the machine’s automated processes. Between 1992 and 2002, Lille-based photographer Olivier Despicht created a collection of more than 140 photo booth images as part of his formal research on portraiture. 

as a student at the École Supérieure des Arts Saint-Luc in Tournai, he chose the photo booth for a required self-portrait assignment. The booth becomes a space for self-presentation. Over the course of the sessions, Olivier Despicht learns to master the machine: he checks the framing in the glass’s reflection and knows exactly when the shutter will fire. Thanks to the cooperation of the technician responsible for maintaining the machine, he also experimented with the color rendering of the prints, whose saturated tones lend a surrealistic quality to the series. 

For his project focused on the representation of couples, Olivier Despicht instead embraces the formal and standard simplicity of the photo booth—now digital—to create juxtapositions of faces. The monochrome and nearly uniform treatment of the series, along with the repetitive format of the ID-style portraits, highlight the variety of poses he creates with the help of his partner, despite the cramped space of the booth. Over the years, these photo sessions—taken in a photo booth while they were out grocery shopping—have come to document their private life. By including his children in the photos, Olivier Despicht embraces the unpredictable, and the series transforms into a unique and original family album. 

↘︎ Curating: Anne Lacoste, Director of the Institut pour la photographie