B.C. man fights to keep film alive with analog photo booth business

Ian Azariah, the man behind photo booth company Phototronic, sources, repairs, maintains and installs analog film booths within Vancouver.

Smartphone cameras with optical zoom lenses and AI trickery might be impressive to some photographers, but if you ask Vancouver’s Ian Azariah, there is nothing that can capture a moment in time quite like analog film.

With the company Phototronic, Azariah is the only person in the province to be owning, restoring, and operating analog photo booths, one of only two people in the country and one of only roughly a hundred people, he says, worldwide.

“No one else is doing it in Canada. The popularity has only really become prevalent over the past few years, in the same way that people are only now rediscovering vinyl records,” he says.

With so many disposed of during the digital revolution, Azariah estimates there are only around 500 of the “dip and dunk” photobooths, which shoot the images directly onto paper strips and develop them in chemicals within the machine, left in the world.

He currently owns four of those, two of which can be found in Vancouver’s Main Street watering holes The American and Hero’s Welcome.

Phototronic also custom builds digital photobooths and collaborates with businesses to install them in creative spaces across the city, including North Vancouver’s The Polygon, the lobby of the Hotel Belmont, thrift store Gore Street Vintages, and a selection of cafes.

Azariah says he is consistently on the hunt to expand his fleet, but the analog booths are “incredibly hard” to source, and finding people who are willing to part with them is equally as challenging.

“The people who have them, love them. It is almost like buying someone’s classic car that they absolutely adore. They’re not going to just sell it to anybody, they want to make sure the car goes to a good home.”

In the same way that serious car enthusiasts can often sniff out other serious car enthusiasts, Azariah says it doesn’t take long for fellow classic film lovers to discern his passion is genuine and steadfast.

Before Phototronic, Azariah worked in the film industry as a camera operator for heavyweight Hollywood franchises like Planet of the Apes and Pirates of the Caribbean.

It wasn’t until a snowboarding injury forced a halt to his film career that Azariah had the time to focus on his other passion for analog film. He started working with tintype, a pure form of photography with emulsion and metal plates widely used during the late 1800s, before ideas for the analog booth began to spark.

“I had to think how to move forward, instead of being bitter about it, I just had to find a way where I could continue to evolve my passions, and find a way to continue providing physical, hard copy memories to the people of Vancouver,” he says.

When he isn’t tinkering away on one of his machines, the photographer can be found hitting up the international conference for analog photobooth operators, a real event, he confirms with a laugh, that looks like a scene swiped a Wes Anderson film.

Azariah says the most surprising band of people showing support for the vintage photography form are the youths – members of generation Z who, after years of carrying around the internet in their pocket, are revolting against the onslaught of technology.

“There are some people who have never experienced these booths before, like 13-year-old teenagers, who have no idea how these things work and they’re so excited to be given the chance to step back in time,” he says.

“It says on the right side of the booth that it takes three minutes to develop, but everyone always freaks out. When they’re shooting their photos, they run over to where the photo strip delivers and they’re like ‘Why isn’t it here yet?’ ‘Why is it wet when it comes out?’ ‘Why is it so bright?‘”

There is a thirst for learning and a buzz for the classic form of photography that Azariah says gives him hope the analog renaissance is here to stay.

“Thank you to the next generation of people who have, through any means, found out about analog photos, and basically fallen in love with them, because it is helping all of us operators.”