Time Traveling Victorian Photo Phone Booth
Client : Cassandra Clare, NYT Best Selling Author
Location : Amherst MA
Description : Steampunk photo “phone” booth from repurposed, historic objects came about unexpectedly when working on a residential home décor project for New York Times Best-Selling Author Cassandra Clare, known for her hit series The Mortal Instruments, as well as Clockwork Angel and other works of young adult fiction.
Materials : Original K2 Victorian Phone Booth, Elevator speed control wheels, other salvaged materials
Location : Amherst MA
Description : Steampunk photo “phone” booth from repurposed, historic objects came about unexpectedly when working on a residential home décor project for New York Times Best-Selling Author Cassandra Clare, known for her hit series The Mortal Instruments, as well as Clockwork Angel and other works of young adult fiction.
Materials : Original K2 Victorian Phone Booth, Elevator speed control wheels, other salvaged materials
Challenge: To create a ‘time machine’ for the author’s stories where guests could travel to the past, present or future in reference to where the author’s stories were located.
Solution: Finding and modifying an original K2 British Phone booth into a ‘photo booth’. We had to replace the glass, and on one side of the phone booth, the team created a ‘green screen’ background by painting the glass, so the background in the photos could be controlled and switched depending on the user’s selection.
Two key elements added to the booth were control mechanisms from a paper mill in Pittsfield, MA and “wheels” that were once used to control the speed of an elevator.
Contained within the elevator hardware were three sets each of 18 copper tabs, which gave engineers the ability to infuse and control modern day electronics to digitally display and switch the photographic background. All total, the time machine user has 54 options of snapshot destinations – past, present and future.