Say cheese: Where to find analog photo booths in Prague

There's something thrilling about stepping into an analog photo booth in 2026. There are no filters or endless retakes; just a curtain, a stool, and a strip of silver nitrate portraits that will outlast your phone by about a century.

Prague, as it turns out, is one of the better cities in the world for this particular pleasure. A French company called FotoAutomat has been restoring and reimagining vintage analog photo booths since 2007, first in Paris and then, from 2020, in Prague. 

You might have noticed some of these picturesque booths dotted about the city; but with the current restoration of the National Theatre and recent reopening of Kasárna Karlín, a couple of the most recognizable stations have relocated. There are fewer than two hundred functioning analog photo booths left on the planet, so the machines in Prague are worth seeking out.

And beyond the analog models are some grungier, digital outposts dotted around the city and in metro stations, for ID photos needed in a pinch or quick snippets of memorabilia. Here's where to find them all.

This is the one that started it all in Prague. Originally installed at the foot of the Nová Scéna – the brutalist national theater designed by Karel Prager – it has since relocated to the stairway alongside CAMP, the city's Center for Architecture and Metropolitan Planning on Vyšehradská. An apt relocation given another of Prager's designs stands right beside it.

The machine itself is a statement: four aluminium columns, a bullet-proof door, and a glacier-blue interior that FotoAutomat describes as being "stainless steel dipped in the Vltava." A thermal regulation system keeps it running in the depths of winter and the heat of summer alike, seven days a week, at all hours. It accepts Czech crowns, euros, and contactless bank cards.

The Czech photographer Libuše Jarcovjáková, whose underground portraits of 1980s Prague nightlife have become iconic, is among those documented using this very machine.

If the CAMP booth is a modernist colossus, Booth #08 – nicknamed "The Relic" – is far more intimate. A custom reconstruction of a 1950s model it was built by hand in FotoAutomat's workshop using a specially made mould and press, wrapped in hand-polished aluminium, with a light oak interior finish.

It made its debut at the Grand Palais in Paris in 2017 for the Irving Penn exhibition, later moved to La Samaritaine for its grand reopening in 2021, and arrived in Prague in 2025. It now lives in the heart of the Art Nouveau Pasáž U Nováků gallery on Vodičkova – one of the city's most atmospheric covered arcades, and a fittingly theatrical setting for a machine this particular.

The ovoid shape, the "Photographies" illuminated sign, and the Toile de Mayenne curtain truly makes its appearance in the passage timeless.

For something less pristine and more in keeping with Prague's alternative spirit, Cross Club in Holešovice has a photo booth tucked on its labyrinthine exterior.

The club itself is a destination: a multi-level industrial venue decorated with repurposed mechanical parts, pipes, and welded sculptures that make it look like the inside of a steampunk submarine. The photo booth here is a perfect excuse to document a night in one of the city's most singular spaces.

Not every photo booth visit is about aesthetics, though there is still something charming about a grungy underground station. If you need a standard ID or passport photo in a hurry, Prague's metro network has you covered.

Digital booths operated by PRO-MATIC ČR are installed at around 19 stations across all three lines, producing regulation-size prints (3.5×4.5cm) in minutes. They're open during metro hours, cost around CZK 100 CZK, and accept cash only.