(^60) The Official Raspberry Pi Projects Book raspberrypi.org/magpi
s first Raspberry Pi
projects go, building
a photo booth for your
own wedding is an ambitious
and potentially stressful one, but
that’s just what Jack Barker did
for his and fiancée Pam’s big day.
“I’ve always been fascinated with
tinkering and programming but,
in truth, the primary motivation
came when I saw how much it
cost to hire a photo booth!” After
Projects SHOWCASE
Need a wedding photo booth? You could always build your own...
PHOTO BOOTH
A
JACK BARKER
Jack is based in Melbourne, Australia.
By day he works as a business analyst;
by night he writes code, blogs, and
muses on all things technology.
jackbarker.com.au
getting quotes upwards of A$500
(£300), and struggling to stay
within their wedding budget, Jack
realised he could build his own
booth for considerably less money.
“When I first mentioned
the idea to Pam, she was a bit
nervous that it might be another
project that wouldn’t eventuate!”
admits Jack. The booth took him
20 hours to complete, spread
across a number of weekends.
This included writing all the code
from scratch – available on his
GitHub page (magpi.cc/2sNsRic).
“Certainly a lot of that time was
spent trying out different ideas,
and deciding on which features
to include.” As the wedding
date drew closer, Jack had to
de-scope some ideas that weren’t
absolutely essential, including a
printer to produce instant copies
of the photos.
Since the venue had no WiFi
connection, Jack’s plan to run a live
backup of photos to the internet
also had to be shelved. “My low-
tech solution was to simply write
the images to the Pi’s SD card (and
hope for the best). The following
day I was very glad to see that they
had all been saved without issue,
and I was then able to post them
online for the guests to view.”
Building the main booth
structure from plywood, Jack cut
out a section for the LCD screen
and drilled holes for a large arcade
button below and the Raspberry Pi
Camera Module above. Jack used
a 3D-printed part to align the
Jack tested the screen and camera
setup thoroughly before inserting
it into the wooden cabinet
As the wedding date drew closer,
Jack had to de-scope some ideas
that weren’t absolutely essential
Build details are
on Jack’s blog
(magpi.cc/
2sO7JZo)
The booth
took 20 hours
to make
By default
it takes four
photos per
session
Live internet
backup of
photos is
possible with a
WiFi connection
External lights
would improve
night-time shots
Quick
Facts