04/27/2026
I started ilo [eye-lo] after watching guests at a wedding I was photographing. The photo booth there was a mess of feather boas and busy backgrounds, and the photos looked like a mall kiosk from the 90s. I watched people take their prints, take a photo of the print with their phone, and then throw the paper away. I immediately thought, “This could be done better.”
So ilo began. We focused on making the process simple—you should just have a beautiful photo sent to your phone instantly. We leveled up the quality by using our photography background to build a professional portrait studio in an automated, portable form.
As we grew, we never lost the drive to make things better. I spent my life as a musician and photographer. My mom always told me I would be an engineer because I was the kid who took everything apart to see how it worked. I still do that.
We care about the details, but just like a musician who obsesses over guitar tone, it isn’t really about the gear—it’s about the music. It’s the same with ilo. It isn’t about the fancy tech; it’s about how we use that tech to create the best possible product in the simplest way possible.
That is our goal: beautiful photos that are fun to make because the process is so easy. That’s how joy happens in a photo booth.
Thanks for reading,
PK
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