My Photo Booth Friend Moved to London, So We Built One Online

My friend and I took sticker photos in the booths at Tin Shui Wai's neighbourhood malls. Squeeze in, pull a face, wait for the strip to drop out of the slot.

Then she moved to London.

My phone takes far sharper photos than those booths ever did. Not one of them feels like a booth strip. And a booth only works if you're both in the box.

Chloe had the same itch from the other side. In her words: "I love sticker photos so much I was going broke taking them, so I made my own online photo booth." Together we built kawa2: a booth for two people in two cities.

Chloe's first strips, from the day she launched it.

The short version

• Try it: kawa2.app. Tap "take today's photo", then "far apart".
• How it works: you take half the strip and send a link. Your friend takes the other half. One strip, two cities.
• Build your own: start from the feeling you miss, then test it as the friend far away.

Step 1: Write the feeling in one line

Ours is on the home screen: "miles apart, same photo strip."

Write yours before you ask for a single feature, and check every idea against it. Sharpness never made our list. The countdown panic, four photos in a row, the frame, the date and being in it together did.

Step 2: Describe the booth

Start a session on omg.dev. The button at the top of this page fills in this prompt:

Make an online photo booth for two friends in different cities. I take my half of a 4-photo strip with my phone camera and get a link; my friend opens it, takes their half, and the photos merge into one strip. Add a countdown, cute frames, stickers and a date stamp. Each of us can save our own copy without waiting for the other, and the link never expires. Give it a hand-drawn, cute look like a Hong Kong mall photo booth. Test it as both people on two phones, then publish it.

Then add booth details one message at a time. kawa2 now has:

• Shots: 1 big photo, 2 or 4, with a 3, 5 or 10-second countdown.
• Frames: 24 designs, from Y2K and film to dim sum and glitter cards. "Match my photos" picks frames that suit your colours.
• Filters: natural, purikura, film, cool, mono and pencil sketch.
• Beauty sliders: smooth, whiten, slim face, big eyes and more, with "hold: before / after". Chloe added these quietly. Every mall booth has them.
• Decorate: stickers, captions, a date stamp, bear ears and blush.

Step 3: Make it work far apart

This is the part a real booth can't do. You take your half and tap "send to my person". Your friend opens the link and takes theirs. The photos merge, taking turns down the strip.

Two questions from testing changed this flow:

• "Will the link expire?" For a friend in London, a link that dies overnight is useless. Ours don't expire.
• "You have to wait for your friend to confirm." At first both people had to confirm before anyone could save. Now each person can save their own copy any time.

Test as the friend far away. That's where the problems show up.

Step 4: Keep every strip

Paper strips get lost in drawers. Every kawa2 strip goes into a book you can share with your person. A daily frame and a streak bring you back.

Step 5: Launch where your friends already are

Chloe posted her first strips on Threads with one line: help me test it.

Chloe's launch post on Threads.

In two days it had 6,200 views, 216 likes and 60 shares. Three things helped:

• Real photos, not screenshots. Her strips show what you get.
• A watermark. Every strip carries a small "kawa2.app", so a shared strip tells people where to make one.
• One clear ask. "Help me test it" gets more replies than "check out my app".

Two tips

• Use your own art. We replaced frames drawn in a famous cartoon style with our own designs.
• Use a short domain. We bought kawa2.app so it's easy to say out loud.

Make yours

Think of a place you used to go with someone who's far away now: a booth, a karaoke room, a café table. Write one line about the feeling, then describe it to omg.dev.

Or take a strip with your person now at kawa2.app.

Missing an old game instead? Read how I rebuilt Tetris Battle to play with my best friend again.