Der Photoautomat
As a photographer, one of the first things I fell in love with when I moved to Berlin was its Photoautomats. For those of you who have never heard about it, the Photoautomat is an old-looking photo booth where you can take high-contrast black-and-white self portraits for just 2 euros. The machine itself is so colourful and so retro… so special!
The story of this cute tiny booth goes back to 2003, when Asger Doenst and Ole Kretschmann had the idea of restoring old photo booths from the 70s to be used in a brand new way. Two years later the first one was placed in Rosenthaler Platz. Since then, about 13 more Photoautomats have pop up in the city. You can find them in the coolest neighbourhoods of Berlin: from Kreuzberg to Neukölln, Prenzlauer Berg and Friedrichshain. The idea started here and it quickly spread to different European cities, such as Paris, Vienna and London. If you want to, you can also rent them.
Photoautomats are quite successful. In some of them, like the one in Kottbusser Tor, there’s always a cue of people preparing to smile to the camera. As you might be thinking, yes, there’s someone who takes care of the maintenance and cleaning. This is Berlin, so you can imagine those are important things to do regularly.
We love them. In fact, everytime someone is visiting us, we take him or her to the Photoautomat. That’s just like our own private ceremony.
Last Tuesday we went to the one in Moritzplatz. Check it out!
Text and pictures by Silvia Conde.
can’t wait to try it !!!!
We have photoautomats in Karlsruhe as well, but I never saw one of those here in Germany! Where in Berlin can I find it? Or there are many around? I plan to go to Berlin until the end of the year, and this is something I would love to do.
Hallo! There are many of them all around the neighborhoods we say. You can find the exact address on their website!!!! You definitely have to go there!!!!
oh, how great to find yr blog! lived in berlin for more then ten years, decided to try asia again for a couple of years. but know we gonna go home to berlin afterwards. so nice to see the photoautomaten and all the other little things you wrote about. my favourite bookstore was always the pro qm.
@ thecrazyragdollcatlady – there are two at kastanienallee (near eberswalder), one at rosenthaler platz, one at warschauer strasse. and even two or three more. they have a webpage as well.
Ten years in Berlin sound like a long time. I think that you saw so many changes in the city during that period, didn’t you?? And I guess that when you come back now, you’ll find many many more!!!! It’s an incredible city, isn’t it??
Pro QM is one of our favs too!!!!
Thanks for your comment!!!
I’ve been in Berlin a few times but never saw these!!! They are AMAZING. Thanks for the tip!
That must be pretty good to take photos in there. All I have is a mobile app that simulates these kind of photo booths…
Hi!
Where can I find a photoboth in Paris