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- Amid the boom in sales of vinyl records, CDs and disposable cameras, photo booths are having a moment in L.A. and beyond.
- The latest offering is Genic, a “high-angle” photo booth company founded by two recent UCLA grads.
On a recent Saturday afternoon in the Arts District, a group of seven friends — plus a tiny dog — contorted and twisted their bodies to fit inside a light brown, 8-foot-tall box that had a mirrored door inscribed with the words “Memory Archive.”
Once they were all mostly inside, they looked up toward a Canon DSLR camera that was peeking out of a small hole.They posed — smiling brightly, forming their fingers into peace signs and heart shapes, and holding the dog in the air like Baby Simba — as the shutter clicked eight times. They then stepped out of the booth, selected their favorite shots at a kiosk and waited about 60 seconds for the photos to develop.
The energetic group of new friends, most of whom had only met a few hours before at a rave, had stumbled upon the photo booth as they were grabbing food at Idyllic cafe and decided to commemorate the moment. They gushed over the results.
“This was very cute,” says Eugenia Bulah, 41.
Throughout the rest of the afternoon, dozens of other stylish people in the bustling cafe flicked up with their friends and significant others in the Genic photo booth, a “high-angle” booth that takes images from an elevated perspective.
Genic founders M.J. and Ryan Kim, two recent UCLA graduates who are not related, said that since they installed the booth at Idyllic cafe in late February, it has captured nearly 1,000 photos. The duo has two other high-angle booths in L.A., one at a cafe called About Time in Koreatown and another in the food court at the Westfield Culver City, as well as a regular, selfie-style booth at Mi Café in Koreatown.
Invented by Anatol Josepho, the first photo booth made its debut in New York City in 1925. A century later, there’s no shortage of photo booths in L.A. They can be found in bars, fancy hotel lobbies, coffee shops, malls and other businesses. But in recent years, these original selfie machines — much like vinyl records and the use of disposable cameras — have been experiencing a resurgence, particularly among younger generations. Rather than just having loads of images on your phone, photo booth lovers appreciate having the physical memory that they can place on their fridge, in a scrapbook or in frames around their home.
The technology has skyrocketed from grainy, low-resolution images on a photo strip. People now can take photos from an elevated angle (which some find more flattering), employ quirky props, pick from limited-edited backgrounds and frames or pose next to their favorite K-pop artist. Other popular photo booth companies, with locations in L.A. and throughout the U.S., include Potobox, Life 4 Cuts and Photoism.
“It’s always been a thing, but lately it’s become absolutely crazy because all the youngsters got into it and they are putting videos on Instagram and TikTok,” says Mike Rybak, 58, who has been an analog photo booth technician and operator for more than 20 years. His company, Photo Illusion, has installed 40 booths in L.A., including his most popular one at 4100 Bar, which averages 2,000 photos per month.
Rybak also supplied famed photographer and content creator Bryant Eslava‘s viral vintage machine known as Booth by Bryant, which has been graced by celebrities like the Kardashians, Jaden Smith, Lil Wayne, Martha Stewart, the “Succession” cast and more. (There’s one Booth by Bryant machine in L.A. at Harriet’s Rooftop in West Hollywood and two others in Costa Mesa.)
“I think the up-trend happened right after COVID,” adds Rybak. “People were locked up and nobody could go to the bars, and as soon as everything reopened, people just went crazy.”
This renewed excitement surrounding photo booths is part of the reason Gen Zers and college friends M.J. Kim and Ryan Kim launched their company, Genic (short for “photogenic”), in April 2024.
“I love taking pictures. That’s literally how it started,” says M.J., 23, who majored in data and statistics. She’s the unofficial face for the brand and many of her photos are taped onto the side of Genic’s booth for inspiration. “I just felt something different [whenever] I took pictures with my friends in photo booths,” M.J. adds. “There was just so much laughter and we’d always get so creative with the poses.” She and Ryan thought having a photo booth on or near the UCLA campus could elevate their experience. (They are working on making this happen.)
At first, M.J. and Ryan struggled to find a manufacturer that would allow them to purchase a single booth rather than multiple, which is all they could afford at the time. But after months of hunting, they found one based in South Korea — where both are from — that believed in their vision and sold them a single booth for about $20,000. They used their savings to pay for it, then began testing the booth out in Ryan’s three-bedroom apartment, which he shared with roommates.
Inspired by the popularity of photo booths in South Korea — where booths can be found on just about every corner in the city’s busiest district, Hongdae — M.J. and Ryan wanted to create a booth that took photos from above, to inspire people to “always dream high and look up.”
“Photo booths are so big in South Korea,” says Ryan, who majored in design at UCLA. “It’s really a culture. It’s a lifestyle for people. But we didn’t want to just bring that industry to the U.S. because the branding is a little bit different and we wanted to really resonate with the whole U.S. market rather than just Asian Americans in the U.S. So we tried different branding. Something that’s a little cooler.” With Genic, they wanted to establish a recognizable, creative lifestyle brand, Ryan adds.
Once the duo nailed the mechanics and design for their first photo booth — which had a regular angle rather than a high one — they started asking businesses near their university if they could install it there, free of charge. Eventually, Melo Melo, a coconut dessert shop in Sawtelle, gave them the green light and offered them a three-month pop-up residency, beginning last April.
Catherine Thomas, a shift lead at Melo Melo, says they agreed to work with Genic because they wanted to collaborate with students and they thought the booth would appeal to their college crowd.
“It was really successful,” says Thomas, adding that weekend nights were the busiest. “It definitely helped with our sales too, bringing new people in.”
Shortly after the Melo Melo residency ended, the duo moved the booth to Coffee MCO in Koreatown for a two-week pop-up. They used the money from their sales to purchase three high-angle photo booths. M.J. and Ryan, who run Genic full-time, say they hope to purchase more booths and expand to more locations throughout L.A. and beyond. They also hope to collaborate with brands and events, and eventually open a flagship store.
M.J. and Ryan designed their booth to feel like an experience and like you’re shooting for the cover of a magazine. First, you’ll select which type of frame you want at the kiosk machine, the original, which looks like a traditional photo strip and costs $10 for two prints; or their most popular, the signature frame, which mimics a fashion editorial with one large image or three photos and costs $12 for two prints. The photos also have a QR code at the bottom, so you can download high-quality, digital versions of your photos as well as a live video of you experiencing the booth.
Back at Idyllic, M.J. and Ryan, who visit their photo booths daily to ensure that they are working properly, watched as people hopped in and out of the machine. Among the crowd were friends Cassandra Leviste, 22, and Stacy Salazar, 20, who visited the cafe specifically to check out the Genic booth, which they said had been popping up on their “For You” page on TikTok for weeks.
“It’s not really a common angle for a photo booth, so before we [came], we were looking at inspo photos on Pinterest,” says Leviste, 22, who lives in the Valley. “We were serious.” They agreed on their poses ahead of time and coordinated their outfits.
Leviste says she loves photo booths because they are a convenient way to capture physical memories with her loved ones without having to ask someone else to take a photo of them.
“I’ve been to so many photo booths that I’m running out of space on my bulletin board,” she says, laughing.
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