In the spirit of “create the things you wish existed,” I’ve finally begun work on a project I’ve been thinking about for several (!) years: the autistically detailed map of photo booths in Portland, Oregon, that my autistic brain wants to see in the world. It’s called the PDX PHOTO BOOTH MAP and I’m very excited about it.
The map is organized into two categories: “bars and restaurants” (purple icons) and “everywhere else” (reddish-orange icons). I chose these categories because I love photo booths, I don’t drink or eat out (and therefore don’t spend time in bars or restaurants), and I wanted a list of photo booths I could visit that weren’t in those spaces. My hope is that these categories will be useful to others, too (teenagers, families, other adults who don’t drink and/or eat out, etc.).
For whatever reason, the map doesn’t consistently work in the Google Maps app—sometimes a location’s details show, sometimes they don’t. According to the internet, this is a known issue with no solution. If the details of each location matter to you, you’ll have the best experience accessing the map from browser on mobile (copy/paste or type www.photoboothmap.com into your phone’s browser), or from a laptop/desktop. If you’re after only the location and don’t care about the other details, accessing the map in-app will work fine.
As of publication of this post, there are 43 entries on the map: 29 photo booths in the “bars and restaurants” category, 14 in the “everywhere else” category. Not all of them are complete. Here’s what a completed entry looks like (on laptop/desktop):
In addition to these details, the entry also includes three photos of the booth itself that I took: one showing what it looks like and where it’s located (as seen in the screenshot), one showing what the background option looks like (hot pink sequins), and one showing what the photo strips you get from it look like. My goal is for every entry on the map to include the same details seen in this photo booth’s entry, and the same three types of photos.
Almost every photo booth in the “everywhere else” category is complete. The one exception is QuarterWorld, which has a few details but is missing others. It’s also missing photos. Almost all of the photo booths in the “bars and restaurants” categories are incomplete—they have no written information or photos. Can you help complete these entries? Do you have additional or updated information about any of the photo booths included on the map? Do you know of a photo booth in the city that’s not yet listed on the map? Email me (please!): pdxphotoboothmap@gmail.com. And, of course, please share the map with your fellow Portlanders, visitors, and photo booth enthusiasts. Happy photo boothing!