Two Aroostook County friends, who love making photo booth memories together, decided to bring a modern, interactive way to capture fun moments to northern Maine.
Danielle Lane of Houlton and Devon Cote of Caribou have been friends for nearly two decades and they admit they are the party starters. That’s why they recently kicked off LuxeLens, a modern, sleek take on the traditional enclosed photo booth of 1950s fame.
“We’ve always been the ones jumping into photo booths at weddings and parties, dragging everyone in with us,” said Cote. “But we realized there really wasn’t anything like that up here. There was nothing that felt interactive and totally customizable. So we decided to build it ourselves. ”
The LuxeLens experience is hitting northern Maine exactly 100 years after the first fully automated coin-operated analog photo booth was placed in New York City’s Times’ Square. According to historians, in that first year over 250,000 people paid a quarter for a photo strip that fell from the machine in eight minutes.
The seductive charm of the booths drew friends and lovers who snapped dramatic poses, often stealing kisses behind the booth’s curtain. And even John Lennon and Yoko Ono, John and Jaqueline Kennedy and artist Andy Warhol had fun in the photo booths.
Warhol created a vast collection of photobooth self-portraits over a three-year period that were published in 1989, “Andy Warhol Photobooth Pictures” and now sells on Amazon for nearly $3,000. In 2014, The Huffington Post dubbed Warhol as the originator of the selfie.
LuxeLens isn’t your typical photo booth, Lane and Cote said.
It’s a sleek, portable open setup, featuring green screen backgrounds with interactive videos, standard backdrops for weddings, Boomerangs, GIFs, a fully mobile feature and unlimited instant digital sharing.
Guests can strike a pose, make a silly looped video, or snap a group shot in front of a fun, themed backdrop, Lane said.
“Doing this together in the County where we grew up has been really special, but we’ve also already had inquiries from central and southern Maine. They see the interactive video backdrops and realize this isn’t your typical photo booth,” said Lane, adding that you can’t get these features from a phone.
The idea for LuxeLens photo experience started when the duo attended a work event in Florida in March.
There were three different set-ups for photo booth experiences during the event and they realized there was nothing like that at events they attended in northern Maine.
“It was one of the highlights of the night and something we can look back on and relive that moment,” Lane said. “We wanted to be able to bring that themed experience to Aroostook County.”
Unlike phones, the photo booth experience offers still shots, GIFS (three shots), Boomerang (repeat forward and backward video) classic video with backdrop or interactive backdrop and the option to text the videos or scan a QR code to get them for sharing.
Additionally, event organizers get all the photos and videos taken during the event in one digital file, Cote said.
”We bring that experience and backdrops. You can’t do that with your phone,” Lane said.
They recently did a prom and a few charitable events where they donated the booth. Starting this weekend, they have several events and weddings on the schedule. They plan to be at Houlton’s Midnight Madness on July 3 and it would be a good time for people to check out the experience, they said.
In all the packages, delivery and set-up is included within 30 miles of Houlton or Caribou.
There are many packages to choose from, including the mini one-hour package for $120 all the way up to the Luxe nine-hour package for $600. Additionally there are minimal costs for add-ons to the base packages such as green screen, roaming mode, video or live props, virtual guest book, LuxeLens attendant, custom templates, and internet, to name a few.
The best part?
The equipment is very intuitive and super easy to use, but Lane and Cote are available to work events and do a big green screen set-up with backdrop.
“We create these interactive backdrops and sometimes it’s easier to have one of us there to navigate that experience,” Lane said.
People using the LuxeLens photo booth experience can get video, still photos and even live stream it. With the green screen feature, they get to interact with whatever is on the screen for video capture.
Some of the visuals at recent events have included a disco ball on the screen, as well as an interactive moose and a Cheshire cat in a tree.
“You walk away with a memory immediately,” Lane said.
