In 2013, the National Park Service, in partnership with the Yellowstone Park Foundation, restored one of the park’s historic buildings, the Old Faithful Photo Shop. Originally built in 1927, the restored structure is now a modern, interactive exhibit telling original Yellowstone photographer Frank J. Haynes’ story and the role photography played in establishing the park as a tourist destination.

macMonkey Digital Studios was tasked to create three interactive digital exhibits on­-site including five iPad kiosks to display photos and take visitor donations. The first exhibit was the Welcome Area Legacy Wall with a rotating visual display of jaw­-dropping Yellowstone nature photographs taken by F. Jay Haynes. Visitors can also see their own postcard photos from the Photo Op area intermingle with the gorgeous original Haynes photos on one of the four integrated video displays.

In the Photo Op area, visitors can have their own photo taken with the press of a button in front of one of three giant reproductions of a Haynes original postcard. Proceeding to the Digital Darkroom, guests then choose their postcard photo on one of five iPads, email it to Grandma, and then become part of the exhibit themselves by choosing to display their photo on the Welcome Area Legacy Wall.  Each custom iPad kiosk easily allows visitors to donate to the Yellowstone Park Foundation with a simple swipe of a credit card.

Project included creation of custom display server for four large displays of mixed size and orientation, a custom iPad app and a credit card payment enclosure integrated with the Foundation’s existing online fundraising software for donation transactions and security.

The Photo Op area is a self-running photo booth experience incorporating a high-end DSLR camera integrated into a vintage camera replica, a playback monitor for visitors to view their picture pose with a photo countdown, and a remote button for activation. The images then network to the Digital Darkroom systems’ data and displays.