Tobias Guttman’s “Face-o-mat” is not your classic portrait booth (VIDEO)

Imagine this. You sit in front of a small booth, and feed your money through a slot. Then, you adjust sliders for if you want your image to be black and white or color, facelift or natural, classic or avant-garde. And three minutes later, out comes your picture. But with the Face-o-mat, it's no photobooth. It's artist Tobias Guttman on the other side, inking quick portraits that saw him travel 40,000km, and and record more than 700 faces.

Swiss artist Guttman has been recording the adventures of Face-o-mat over Tumblr, as he's visited Tokyo, London, Milan, Stockholm, and Dar es Salaam, taking the booth with him when he traveled. And in every location, he set up shop and drew portraits from inside his little stall.

While the Face-o-mat might not be a traditional photobooth, there's something kind of amazing in Guttman's work. Ranging from very recognizable portraits to the extremely abstract, they all seem to capture something of the essence of the subject. We're just hoping he heads on the road again, and this time travels to the USA.

(via Colossal)