To put it simply, Mark Hennings doesn’t do things by half. Simply put, he’s a man on a mission. A mission to leverage technology and photography in a bid to deliver maximum entertainment and engagement.

Why?

Well, it’s a passion that started early. At 12, he was the kid trying to create a videogame. Not satisfied with just playing them, his early interest in technology soon moved onto software development. Software alone wasn’t enough, and soon his interest was sparked by photography and videography. An interest that he was able to combine with business savvy gained studying at college.

Mark was soon running a successful video production company, delivering both wedding and marketing videos. And like many of us in the photo booth business, he became an accidental participant in this dynamic industry.

This story is a little bit different however, and unlike boothers across the world, Mark’s passion for technology took him down a different path.

He’d seen the amazing potential of photo booths, having cobbled together an iPad photo booth for an after-party. A favour for a friend, turned into an unexpected insight into a whole new world that Mark had no idea existed.

“I was at college at the time and thought, sure I can figure this out. I grabbed my iPad 2, called myself Photo Booth Dudes and jumped right in.”

“Despite the clunkiness of the app, where people had to manually add their Facebook password, the reaction from people at that party was incredible. I’d never seen anything like it. People loved seeing their images straight away and being able to share them in real time.”

This was 2011. The photo booth business was just emerging and the apps available were pretty basic, with limited functionality.

And while Mark could have simply made do with the app he downloaded on the App store, he knew he could do better.

“I knew that I wanted to offer more. I knew that my experience in photography and videography could help. Naively, I thought – how hard could this be?”

It was in fact a bit harder than Mark first thought, but the launch of the Live Photo Booth app on the App store was another seminal moment in the journey towards Simple Booth.

“Back in the day Apple didn’t share real time sales information. But the day after launch I got a support email from my first customer. I was so excited. Someone had paid $99 for my app and wanted help using it!”

Was it an immediate hit? With app downloads racking up from day one?

“This was definitely not one of those movie moments. I had to wait another 30 days for another sale and I had to put in even more work to get this right for customers and for myself.”

Mark’s continued focus on enhancing the tech paid off in 2013 with the launch of Simple Booth. This was one of the first apps designed purely for the iPad.

“We wanted to give the user something simple, that harnessed the ease of the iPad and removed all the complicated moving parts of those early booths. It sounds simple now, but the idea of using the iPad as a complete photobooth solution hadn’t really been done.”

Fast forwarding through the hours of work, trial and error and of course fun, and Mark knew, much-like with that first after-party, that he was onto something.

“We’d built one of the first live event photo apps that delivered not just for ordinary users, but something that businesses could use to deliver incredible events for their customers.”

The team grew steadily to meet rising demand. Iterating, adapting and adding new features that have allowed Simple Booth to stay at the forefront of the photo booth industry.

“Our aim has always been to deliver more for our customers.”

While it might seem a simple ambition, it is anything but. This relentless focus has allowed them to survive through COVID and come out the other side with an even better range of features that customers love.

“ We’ve prioritised DSLR integration, we’ve focussed on perfecting the lighting and our glam filters prioritise a more natural look. We’re integrating Sony cameras and looking to further build out our light controls. Image quality has been one of our USPs. With my background in photography this was a non-negotiable for me.

“The team we’ve got has some of the best design and engineering talent in the industry and we are constantly looking for ways to enhance our product.”

So what’s next for the Simple Booth team?

“2026 will of course be the year of AI. There’s no doubt that this is totally changing the industry and we haven’t raced to launch on this. We’ve taken our time to develop our AI features and it’s really paying off.”

The best part for Mark is also that the team are having fun along the way.

“We test our products out a lot to make sure they work. But we’ve just had ridiculous amounts of fun testing photos, adding new prompts and just exploring the many ways AI can enhance photobooths.

“We are already seeing how corporate agencies are running with the creative potential of AI. But it’s also clear that this tech will cross both worlds and AI is taking off at weddings as well.”

“Next up we will be tackling AI video! So watch this space.”

Mark’s journey from 12 year old video game developer to Simple Booth has not been an easy one, but it’s clear to see that he’s followed his heart and kept focus on what’s important.

“The photo booth industry is constantly changing and has so many different facets. There is constant noise and you have to decide what’s important and what you focus on.”

How does he do that?

“We’ve evolved over time and we’ve become even more customer focussed. We try as much as possible to talk to customers 1-to-1 to understand what’s working, what isn’t, and what would make their lives easier.

“Our priority is to create a product that is delightful to use – both for the operator and the participants. We are passionate about making every feature the best it can be.

“That might mean we don’t release as many features as others. But it does mean that we know that Simple Booth is the best it can be and offers users a product that could make a real difference.”