Film noir photobooth

Every month during downtown's third Thursday event, for funsies, I operate a "photobooth" out of the local art gallery here in Joplin Missouri. 

My booth is my paper roll and lights- really it's a pop-up studio- and I put out a call for props to match whatever theme we've set up that month. 

I'm a bit more nostalgic about it all this year, because it's the last year. Last week, I ran one of the final 3 third thursday photobooths of this or any year. I'm hanging up the 'booth, giving way to new creative things I hope to pursue in the coming year.

And this was my very favorite theme. 

The theme is "film noir"- harsh, shadowy lighting, trench coats and fedoras, a 1940s homeage that stems from my love of cinema and my work on "cold brewed".
 

a still from "cold brewed", my first photonovel project

I know nearly all of the folks that roll through during third Thursday- they're almost all regulars- and they dress up and have a good time. This time, I thought it'd be fun to not only share a few of my favorites, but also to share the ridiculous blurbs that came to mind as I was looking through them. 

Hope you enjoy...

The Souders had claimed to be a family of adults- “He has a very small head and a strange walk, that’s all...” Jake always loudly proclaimed when asked about Charlie. 
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Some, of course, suspected they were hiding something, and that perhaps Jake’s “brother” Charlie had a more dubious and experienced background than any of them let on.

Margie was attempting to bring her boy up right, which to anyone else was very wrong. It was a life of crime she hoped for from Harold, and while she taught him to wield a weapon, he taught her an appreciation for music. Eventually, the radio won, speficially in the moment when Gerswin's "Rhapsody in Blue" made her tearfully drop her oversized pistol into a waste basket.

“Lucky” Luke lamented losing his luck lately, finding gigs where his trumpet was actually appreciated. These doo-wop kids were driving him out of the clubs, he feared jazz was dying, and when he wasn’t loudly lamenting, he was blasting that damn trumpet just trying to prove he could toot better than they could do-wop.
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Meanwhile, miss Tory slowly went deaf, (much to her pleasure actually), and quietly saved change to pay the gas bill.

She'd invited him up to listen to some tunes, which of course had been a mistake in the first place, one she'd made in spite of at least a half dozen warnings from friends who told her that boy was just no good. He'd been planning to rob her from the start, and somehow she was still surprised when he pulled out the gun on her. 

Fortunately, Frederick tripped down the stairs after dashing out of her apartment with the jewels, and was quickly apprehended. 

Eleanor played it safe from then on out and dated the accountant two doors down and they settled down with no violence present in their relationship at all. 

It was a tawdry tale of ribaldry, one with many a bawdy insinuation, and while she couldn't hide her secret delight in such tales, she slapped him anyway and left him red faced in the elevator.

Luke had always been the lucky one with that trumpet- not Tony, though he was assuredly the better player. His issue was becoming so wrapped up in his artists' plight that he couldn't even see how good he had it, his lovely angel hanging on his every tune. 

He gave the craft up for the time being, but later composed a tune for their beloved child was stolen by a film composer and used as the only good element in an otherwise awful crime thriller that played for 50 cents at the rundown theaterhouse. Fortunately, Tony never even recognized his own composition.  

There had always been a certain level of tension between the Dillahay brothers. They had, you might say, very different aspirations in life.

Nora had run away that day, swiping her mothers' overlarge overcoat in an overly dramatic fashion. She was going to find her brother the fishing captain and join him on the high seas. 

Miles had the unfortunate task of informing her that his rickety boat only had room for 3 passengers... and she knew nothing of how to sail or how to fish either one. 

John saw the showmanship of Lucky Luke, and he saw the raw talent in Tony. However, neither of them had 4 daughters (all with expensive hobbies to boot), so neither of them had the go-to-it that he possessed. He played louder, he danced more, and his endorsement from the champ, Mr Armstrong himself, booked him at all the clubs as he trumpeted up a storm to every Glenn Miller tune the band had on their sheets.

I'm going to rob a bank someday, Mildred had said dryly, at the young age of three and three quarters. Her mother had laughed nervously and dragged her to Sunday school classes at not just one church but two. 

Mildred turned 16, aquired a gun, and had her very own wanted poster the following day. 

Prudence had listened ardently to the radio broadcasts of "the Shadow", and had drunk in every second of the "superman" cartoons at the local theater. Her uncle was a forger, and after quietly watching the way he wielded the torch for years, she snuck in one night and made her very own helmet with the intention of being a real life superhero. 

The first shot fired at her by a bank robber named Mildred scared her into going back to work as a typist rather than fighting crime. But one day decades later her grandson happened upon an old picture of her costume. While her name was never known for her efforts, the outfit lived on in infamy in some gall darn cockamamie thing called a "video game" that all the youngsters seemed to waste every waking hour playing.

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If you at all enjoyed the ridiculousness of the captions, I encourage you to check out "bad vinyl", a tumblr/instagram [bad.vinyl] account I started in collaboration w/ Lance Schaubert in which we write amusing short stories to go with really terrible album covers. 

Til next time...

-Mark