Photomaton

Photomaton is the name of a French company which exploits, since the end of the Années 1920, the automatic cabins of Photographie of identity to instantaneous development, installed in the Gare S, the stations of Métro, the shopping malls or the administrations.

History

The first photographic cabins were used with New York in 1924, on the initiative of the American inventor Anatol Marco Josepho. With the wire of time, the Photomaton mark became a common noun employed in the current language to indicate this type of material, without reference of mark, manufacturer or photographic process. In France, these cabins knew their true expansion as from the years 1950-1960, under the influence of the American mode of consumption.

The old models of cabins were equipped with flash are, which started automatically with regular intervals after the introduction of the parts into the Monnayeur. A removable fabric was generally installed as a bottom, behind the person photographed. These cabins, without using for all that photographic Film, delivered bands of three, four, five or six different portraits of identity on paper Argentique, at the end of an amount of time necessary to the passage of paper in developers (approximately 4 minutes). Initially exclusively in black and white, let us photomatons them convert with the color in the years 1970.

As from 1993, on the initiative of the French company of Technology (SOFTWARE), the old silver cabins were gradually replaced by cabins equipped with a Numeric camera, a screen Vidéo and a Imprimante to thermal sublimation (type of printer conceived at the origin for the medical sector). At the end of one minute and half, and without using flash, the current cabins produce a single portrait reproduced four times on the same board. The user can also choose to operate a Photomontage, by numerically integrating his portrait in a whimsical decoration, generally in connection with the exit of a Blockbuster with the cinema. The photographs, which formerly left still wet their silver baths, leave from now on dry. However, the quality of these impressions can lend to debate: certain users regret the disappearance of photomatons silver, for practical reasons as well as poetic or artistic.

Today the numerical cabins deliver portraits in conformity with the new official standards of the identity papers, for little that the user of these cabins respects certain precise instructions (not to smile, be naked head, etc).

The format of the cabins photographs practically not having evolved/moved since their creation, in 2006 the Cybervitrine company took the initiative to modify it to make them available as well to the valid people as with the people in wheel chair. Hitherto, those were to leave their armchair to settle in the cabin. From now on, with Fotopod (registered trademark), the seat can be retracted to leave the place to the armchair of the person Handicap ée.

Others

The cabin photomaton very early aroused the interest of the Surréalistes French, which made use of this photographic process to carry out one of their more famous portraits of group. Many other artists plastics technicians used and use always this means of expression, with the example of the draftsman and French writer Roland Topor, author of many “Topor-screws”.

The photomaton also holds an important place in film of Jean-Pierre Jeunet, the Fabulous Destiny of Amélie Poulain . It also gave its name to a mathematical transformation which belongs to the category of the bijective Transformations of images.

Certain countries still exploit photomatons silver: the the United States of America, certain countries of Eastern Europe, the Swiss , the Germany, countries of the the Maghreb and Black Africa. Often, these old apparatuses are an object of attraction for the tourists and the young people, as it is the case with Berlin, Geneva or Lausanne.

It is sometimes indicated on the cabins that the photographs taken by photomatons fulfill the requirements for the official documents. It is however difficult to take account of all the parameters, and it could be more comfortable, but much expensive, to call upon a professional photograph.

See too

Purikura

External bonds

Photobooth.net: American site devoted to still let us photomatons silver in exploitation

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