A South Devon woman who is obsessed with analogue photobooths and has had her pictures taken in them hundreds of times over the past 30 years, hopes to have an analogue booth installed in the county permanently.

Ashburton-based artist Kate Tyler, 49, has dedicated her life to using analogue photobooths both creatively and as a way of documenting herself.

Her passion for photobooths started with the passport photo machine that was built into the wall of Lincoln railway station. What began as an excuse to preserve a moment with friends spawned a lifelong passion.

‘I started visiting booths with friends, as you do. In the 90s they were the only means you had of getting a selfie,’ she said. ‘We would pose and take silly pictures together and invariably chop up the strips and each one of us would keep a couple of photos,’ she recalled.

‘I always really loved the whole experience of adjusting the stool, pulling the curtain across, having that privacy and freedom to pose and be silly and do whatever you wanted in there.

‘I transitioned from using it as a social thing with friends to really using it as the primary focus of my art.’

Kate has gone on to use hundreds of analogue photo booths all over the world, seeking them out on family holidays and often making trips just to use them.

‘I have got a really big collection of passport photos of friends and family and people I've met over the years and I'm very grateful for that,’ Kate added.

‘I now have a daughter and I do the same with her. I take her to the photobooth regularly.’

When all the analogue booths in the UK had been replaced with digital models in the 2000s, Kate would travel to Latvia to use the only remaining colour analogue booth in Europe at the time.

Located in the corner of the bus station in Riga, locals would look on, amused, as she spent days at a time creating different montages and artworks.

‘I just camped out in this photobooth for a few days just making art and doing stuff because I hadn't been able to use a booth for quite a few years at that point and it was the only colour analogue booth in Europe,’ Kate said.

In 2013, Fred Aldous restored a Model 17c colour booth in its store in Manchester and invited Kate to be its artist in residence, so she didn’t have to travel quite so far.

Last year, she secured a grant to bring an old analogue booth back to Ashburton for a month to develop artistic projects.

In the UK, there only remain a small number of analogue booths - in London, Manchester, Leeds, Edinburgh, Brighton and Belfast.

‘I must have used hundreds of booths over the years,’ Kate said. ‘I would love to find a way to have a booth here in Devon more permanently but they're so rare.’

Kate continues to travel to Manchester and London to use the booths there for her art and said she is grateful to the global community of photobooth fans that are working hard to restore and maintain these machines.