Cincinnati native John DePrisco worked as a photojournalist and commercial photographer before launching his mobile photo booth business, The Photo Bus, in Kansas City with his wife Cate. The concept combines DePrisco’s love of photography and vintage vehicles, and brings a new element to the traditional photo booth.
The Photo Bus is currently in eight cities: Atlanta; Austin; Dallas/Fort Worth; Denver; El Paso, Texas; Kansas City, which is where the DePriscos currently live; St. Louis; and
Cincinnati. There are also plans to launch in two more cities in the near future.
DePrisco found his first vintage bus in a field in Spokane, Wash., and he restored the majority of it himself. The Cincinnati bus is a blue, fully restored 1970 VW Transporter named Betty.
Each bus is equipped with everything you would find in a traditional photo booth: backgrounds, handmade props and instant prints. The camera is controlled by a one-of-a-kind clicker system that allows subjects to decide when the picture gets taken.
The Photo Bus also creates customized logos for events, which allows clients to personalize the bus for their event.
DePrisco’s friends, Lyndsey and Aaron James and Lyndsey’s sister, Heather Pinto, own and operate the Cincinnati bus.
“We fell in love with The Photo Bus concept when we took our first photo in it a few years ago,” Pinto says. “We loved it so much that we asked to bring it back to our hometown.”
The trio has 35 events on the books for this year, including weddings, corporate events, private parties and a number of public events. You can follow the Photo Bus Cincy on
Facebook and Intagram @ThePhotoBusCincy.
“Seeing people step in to take photos and experience the booth for the first time is awesome,” Pinto says. “We love seeing them be creative with props and poses inside the bus.”
She also loves to hear stories from people who have VW stories, and seeing those memories brought back because of Betty.
Enjoy this story?
Sign up for free solutions-based reporting in your inbox each week.