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On Photo Booths and Identity

January 29, 2011 •

When I lived in Paris, it seemed there was a photo booth on every cor­ner. The French, quin­tes­sen­tial bureau­crats, required photo doc­u­men­ta­tion on all kinds of per­mits and appli­ca­tions. Per­haps they still do.

Chris-Identity-Card-for-Sorbonne

The police required a photo on my carte d’identité, a doc­u­ment to be car­ried at all times (or risk depor­ta­tion). It was not enough to have a stu­dent visa… So dupli­cate pho­tos, and a trip to the neigh­bor­hood photo booth.

To live in Paris as a legally doc­u­mented res­i­dent meant sup­ply­ing dozens of pho­tos to a vari­ety of insti­tu­tions. (And often mul­ti­ple copies for each piece of doc­u­men­ta­tion.)

Photo IDs clipped to pur­pose-spe­cific doc­u­ments were required by the uni­ver­sity, for class enroll­ment, stu­dent meals, etc. But they also afforded access to dis­counts on bus and metro passes, museum entry tick­ets, school books and stu­dent sup­plies.

French-identity

It kept those photo booths busy…

Some of the pho­tos were SO ugly that all you could do was laugh. So bad they could almost be taken for police mug shots…

So when Apple intro­duced Apple Photo Booth, a free app for devices with a built-in iSight cam­era, I had to laugh. To me shots taken in a photo booth reveal peo­ple in the least flat­ter­ing ways pos­si­ble. And no sur­prise: most pho­tos shared via Apple Photo Booth are indeed unflat­ter­ing… You won’t find me using that app.

Update 3/2/2011: Given Apple’s intro­duc­tion of the new iPad 2 today, I may have to eat my words. Apple has promised a “new and improved” ver­sion of Photo Booth for the iPad 2 — an app that Apple claims is both lots of fun, as well as visu­ally com­pelling. If that’s the case, you may find me back in “the vir­tual photo booth.”

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Reflec­tions on life, travel, books, and yoga. Think­ing out loud about the pur­suit of mind­ful­ness and well-being.

Learn­ing how to recover from the loss of a beloved spouse, and then to find a trans­for­ma­tive path for­ward.

About Me

Semi-retired marketing exec, transitioning from a career in high tech. Now "managed" by two Tonkinese cats. Missing travel and friends on the West Coast. Avid reader and foodie. Staying active with long walks, biking, kayaking and yoga.

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