As 2025 comes to a close and we wrap up our last shoots for the year we’re super thankful for all our of clients, planners, partners and our team of event photographers, videographers, editors and techs! Reflecting back on a year that had so many dynamic things happening in the world at large, we feel fortunate to have had a great and steady year in spite of that. And 2026 is already looking fantastic with the Super Bowl returning to the Bay Area and many activations, parties and the event itself bringing lots of work like we had when Super Bowl 50 was in town. That was the first Super Bowl we did photography for and are excited to be doing more photography, video projects and activations for Super Bowl LX!
One of our last shoots this year was in Las Vegas where we shoot quite a lot of user conferences, SKOs, MKOs, conventions and more. Tons of headshot activations and headshot booths too and while almost everything we shoot is digital, we do appreciate analog as well. In fact, when we first started Orange, we shot several jobs on both film and digital since in 2001, many weren’t yet comfortable with digital. This year we saw AI take off in all aspects (I mean, was there a conference where you didn’t hear AI discussed?) but we still appreciate the beauty of analog whether it’s in lighting or on the camera side of things.
In Las Vegas in particular, the beauty of analog light is something iconic with all of the neon and there’s even The Neon Museum which is a fantastic place to visit and shoot at and as a rental location too! Currently digital and LED lighting is also quite impressive as it gives event designers more flexibility and options with low powered and bright lighting, but we still do love the warmth and tone of analog light and analog processes. Here in Las Vegas, there’s a couple – Victoria & Stephen – who have been maintaining, restoring and putting analog photo booths out around town. We’ve done both analog and digital photo booths for years, but there’s something about a dip-and-dunk analog photo booth that is magical! Our clients have even hired us to do Polaroids at events which offers an elevated analog experience that is truly unique.
And it’s cool that analog experiences are growing in popularity all over, not just in the events world. There are photo booth museums in Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York City that we know of – and maybe even more around the world. Young people in particular are often seen lining up to take analog photos and we love that too. There’s even a website that tracks where analog photo booths are located.
After finishing up shooting on this Vegas trip we dropped by three of the open booths in town (there’s actually five spots, all run by Victoria & Stephen of Vintage Vegas Photobooth). One of the locations was undergoing maintenance but is now up and the final spot is part of the Sure Thing Wedding Chapel and not open to the public aside from when weddings are happening there.
To the left you can see the one at the Cosmopolitan which is one of the most recently placed booths and the first one on the strip! We were excited that there’s an analog booth on the strip since it gets the most traffic. As you can see here, a bride had just used it with her new groom and was checking on the print while another couple was figuring out what they wanted to do inside the booth. When things are analog, they’re more precious so they make you be more deliberate, which is a great practice overall, especially in our frantic world.
The funny thing is people still have short attention spans and while the booths have notes all over them saying that the process takes up to like five minutes, people still often forget to pick up their strips. The photo above shows many of the left strips and this happens all over.
Once in NYC, I left a strip and a technician there who knows me found it and now it’s part of the booth as one of the many orphaned strips that are often part of a booth’s decor.
So as we wrap up 2025 take a moment if you can, to enjoy something analog. Obviously you’re reading this on some device but if you’ve got an instant film camera lying around, pull it out and shoot some. The wait for the image will be worth it!
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