legends · 4 min read ·
Photo Strip
A photo-booth technician finds strips taken at night in which someone is leaning in through the curtain.
**SnapBooth Ltd — Service Log, Booth 118 (Millbrook Station concourse)**
*Four-frame strips. Flash sequence: 1.5 s intervals. Technician: R. Okafor.*
· · ·
**Service visit 4 Sept.** Cleaned lens. Replaced paper (roll 66). Checked flash. Counter: 14,208 strips. Booth working normally.
**Service visit 18 Sept.** Replaced curtain (torn at hem). Counter: 14,512 strips. Normal.
· · ·
**Customer complaint 1 (SnapBooth helpline, 24 Sept)**
*I took a strip yesterday evening at Millbrook Station. Four photos, as usual. In the third, there is a figure behind my shoulder. It is a tall person in a dark coat. I was alone in the booth. The curtain was closed.*
*I thought it was a reflection. I took another strip. In the third photo, the same figure, closer. In the fourth, it is looking at the camera, and I am looking away.*
*Please would you check the booth.*
**Helpline reply:** *We apologise for the fault. We will send a technician. Please do not use the booth.*
· · ·
**Service visit 25 Sept (R. Okafor)**
Inspected Booth 118. Lens clean, flash fine, curtain intact. Counter: 14,611 strips.
I stood in the booth with a ruler and took six test strips. In each, I appeared alone. The fourth photograph in each strip was slightly darker at the edges, but that is normal. I found nothing.
The booth smelled of damp wool and a faint sweetness like old flowers. The seat was warm.
· · ·
**Customer complaint 2 (24 Sept – 5 Oct, collected)**
*Mrs. A. Dube: "I took a strip. In the second picture I look surprised. In the fourth, I look terrified. I do not remember being either."*
*Mr. T. Reilly: "In my photos, I'm alone for the first three. In the fourth, there is a man's hand on my shoulder. A grey glove."*
*Ms. L. Park: "I have five frames in my strip. It is a four-frame booth."*
· · ·
**Service visit 6 Oct (R. Okafor)**
Collected the day's strips from the dispenser, which I do as a matter of routine, to check print quality. Counter: 14,807. Counted the strips in the tray. 14,807. All four-frame.
I looked through them. I did not set out to. The prints in the tray are not the customers' own photographs. They were taken at night, by the booth, when nobody was using it. One strip for every night since the 4th. Each of the four frames shows the empty seat.
In the first frame, nothing. In the second, nothing. In the third, faint, the outline of a person leaning in through the curtain. In the fourth, a face, pressed close to the lens, as someone presses to a window. The face is not the same on any two nights.
· · ·
**Technician's note (R. Okafor, 8 Oct)**
I took my own strip. I have to know. I sat down on the stool and pulled the curtain and put in the coins. The booth said: *Look at the camera. Four photographs will be taken.*
The flash fired. I looked at the lens. Flash. Flash. Flash.
The strip came out of the slot. I took it, still damp, and held it up. Three of the four frames showed me, alone, in my work shirt, looking strained. The fourth was not me. It was a face I'd never seen, a woman's, close, pale, with her eyes shut. She was very beautiful.
On the back of the strip, in ink, someone had written a date. 27 November.
· · ·
**Booth 118 — decommissioning record (SnapBooth, 12 Oct)**
Booth removed from Millbrook Station. Dismantled. Counter reading at removal: 14,896. The counter had advanced during removal by 11 strips. Eleven strips in the tray, undeveloped. Three of them have since been developed.
All three are strips of the interior of the van. The first frame shows the empty booth, laid on its side on the floor. The second shows the same, the curtain moved. The third, the same, with a hand in the frame, taking the lens cap off. The fourth shows nothing at all. It is black, and under the black, in a faint grey, a line of numbers in a small, tidy script.
*27 Nov. 27 Nov. 27 Nov. 27 Nov.*