The Mo-Pho Stands For Mobile Photos

The Mo-Pho — a soon-to-be mobile photo studio and event space run by Teresa Joseph and Chris Randall, partners in the photo business The Notorious P.I.C. — started off four years ago as an idea in Joseph’s head. This week it took a major leap forward into reality with the acquisition of a double-decker bus from Liverpool, with more in the spring sure to follow.

For Joseph, it’s not just a dream of hers coming to life; it’s also a manifestation of the support she and Randall feel from the community around them.

“The initial idea was that we were going to start a photo bus. It was going to be like the ice cream truck. We were going to have a jingle and everything,” Joseph said. But instead of kids screaming for the ice cream truck, she added, it was going to be adults yelling ​“the Mo-Pho is here!”

There are buses out there very similar to Joseph’s initial idea, down to the first kind of vehicle she had in mind. There are photo buses in Southern and Northern California, Kansas City, the Dallas-Fort Worth area, and Utah, as well as the Shutter Bus out of Joplin, Missouri, and the Blue Photo Bus out of Annapolis, Maryland, featured on Martha Stewart Weddings — all operating out of converted Volkswagen buses from the 1960s and 1970s.

“But as I envisioned how it was going to encompass everything we had already been experiencing in our lives, everything we’d been exposed to — art shows and intimate concerts, all these other things we wanted to host and facilitate,” Joseph said, the idea began to grow beyond what the dimensions of a VW bus could hold.

This is in part because the idea germinated for years. ​“This vision came to me the day after me and Chris had a date,” said Joseph, who was working as an eye technician at an eye doctor’s office. Joseph and Randall had just started seeing each other, but Joseph was taking care of her kids, so date nights were few and far between. Then ​“miraculously, we had two date nights in a row. It was a big deal.” They went out to dinner and Randall asked her what she wanted to do the next day. Over dinner they concocted the idea that they would cruise downtown New Haven in animal costumes. ​“We spent the whole night planning like it was a wedding.” The next day, Joseph, ​“we go downtown and put on these suits” — one of a rabbit, the other of a cat.

“It’s not Halloween,” Randall recalled. ​“It’s just some random, regular day.”

Randall brought his camera. ​“We’re going downtown and everyone’s stopping us, cars are beeping, everyone’s like ​‘take our picture!’” They crossed paths with the Elm City Party Bike. It was one of the passengers’ birthday. The party bike passengers jumped off and started taking pictures with them. ​“Then someone random walks up to Chris and just puts a dollar in his hand. ​“It was the first dollar we made together,” Joseph said, ​“and we didn’t even try. We were just being.”

The next day she was driving to work and inspiration struck. ​“We both have the same purpose,” she said of herself and Randall. ​“We love to bring people joy. We do that apart, but we do it so much better together.” She thought about how they might have a project that let them do that and landed on the idea of a photo bus. She told Randall about it over her lunch break. ​“And we’ve just been marinating in it for four years.”

Last November the idea got a sudden nudge toward feeling more tangible when Joseph’s mother sold a piece of property in Gaylordsville, near Litchfield. Her mother gave some of the proceeds of that sale to each of her children. ​“I think it’s time,” Joseph said. Coincidentally, Joseph and Randall had been working with entrepreneur developers Collab New Haven to put together a business proposal for their idea, which they pitched in December. The process ​“required that I put myself in the shoes of someone who had never heard this before,” Joseph said. ​“But it also required that I investigate and become more acquainted with my own heart.”

By then Joseph’s and Randall’s joint photography business, The Notorious P.I.C., had been up and running for a couple years, doing photo shoots and providing photo booths for events. ​“We had that, and it was tangible,” Randall said. ​“The bus was still just a dream, a vision” — Joseph’s vision.

Going through the process with Collab allowed Joseph to sharpen that vision. As she went through the history of The Notorious P.I.C., she saw how it dovetailed with their personal relationship. She saw that her vision ​“is just an extension of us,” she said. ​“This is just an extension of our heart. It’s who we are. All we want is to take this world that we built together, this magic, and invite other people to take part.” She was following the old adage that ​“when you have more than you need, you build a longer table, not a higher fence.”

In this case, though, a longer table also meant a longer vehicle. ​“The double-decker part of this didn’t really come until June or July of 2021,” Joseph said. By December, she was looking at 14-foot trailers, but finding herself dissatisfied given all the activities she wanted to be able to do with the vehicle — not just provide a photo booth, but also offer a place where people could relax, possibly a place that could serve as the focal point of an event.

“A trailer will work for this, but it won’t work for that,” she said. ​“A bus will work for this but not for that. It was kind of scary pinning something down.” She haunted online groups that specialized in coverting everything from box trucks and school buses to shipping containers and boats (at one point, ​“there was the Mo-Flo,” Joseph said). They almost bought a box truck in Florida that had been converted into an art studio with windows, until a box truck Facebook group ​“scared me out of it so bad.”

She ​“thought about a bus but stayed away from it” because buses couldn’t have flat floors due to needing space for the wheels. Then, on Pinterest, she came across a picture of a double-decker bus in Australia. ​“This thing was stellar,” she said. ​“It was beautiful.” She realized that a double-decker bus could encompass all the ideas she had for the mobile business, from photo shoots to lounge space and entertainment. She contacted Jerry Dolejs at US Bus Utah, who ran double-decker tours in Salt Lake City and other cities, but also arranged for the sale of double-decker buses from the United Kingdom.

“He kept sending us buses that were almost right but weren’t right,” Joseph. ​“The biggest obstacle was the fact that most double-deckers are 40 feet. I said, ​‘Listen, it’s already huge. The steering wheel’s already on the other side. I don’t need the biggest one possible.” Dolejs found them their 30-foot double-decker bus, in Liverpool.

“It was owned by the Liverpool football club,” Randall said. ​“It crossed off most of our things,” Joseph said. And ​“we had to make the decision really fast.” They jumped. The bus was repainted in Liverpool, put on a barge, and shipped to New Jersey. Joseph, Randall, and Dolejs met it at the dock, where it was ready to be driven onto U.S. roads.

“I went in there alone, because only one person is allowed in there at a time,” she said. ​“My first thought was literally, ​‘What did you do? What have you done? This is now your responsibility. It was terrifying! My stomach hurt. I was in Doubt City.” But an hour later, when they pulled into their first gas station in New Jersey, ​“everybody and their uncle was staring at our bus. Everyone was marveling. And I thought, ​‘okay, I can get used to this. We can be successful.”

The height of the bus meant a six-hour, 200-mile trip home to avoid the lower overpasses on I‑95. Dolejs drove the bus; Joseph and Randall drove in front of him. ​“I’m maintaining the right distance, and looking at the GPS ahead. Every overpass he went under, I’d check. I’d look in the mirror, and say, ​‘OK, he made it,’ and we’d keep going.”

With the bus safely in their Fair Haven driveway, Joseph and Randall are getting down to making renovation plans. All the seats will be taken out. They plan to mount a bar and an awning on the outside of the bus on one side that can fold up when driving. The windows there will be converted to be able to open so people outside could be served from the bus. ​“There will definitely be an outside vibe to it,” Joseph said. ​“We really want it to be picturesque. We don’t want it to look commercial. We want it to look vintage.” They’ll put a bike rack on the front.

“The whole interior is going to be white,” Joseph said. There’ll be seating along the outside, ​“like a booth setup … a cafe-lounge vibe.” Cameras will be built in to do pictures and videos. Upstairs, ​“we’ll make it so that on nice days it’ll be open. This is more where we’ll have the photo shoot.” They plan on staging their own events as well as facilitating happenings for others, whether it’s a spot for a private party, an extended event space for a restaurant, or a place for corporate events. ​“Anything you could do at a small venue, you can do here. We’re going to pull up and be the party. You just have to find a reason to throw something.”

They’re aiming for finishing renovations in the spring, down to the jingle, hopefully an instrumental ice-cream truck version of this song. They’re already feeling support from the New Haven community. ​“Someone wanted to hire us for this week. Someone wanted to hire for December. The bus isn’t even ready.” They’re receiving coverage from The Arts Paper and WTNH.

In making the bus a reality, ​“the other thing I realized was how much New Haven — our community, the people we attract — has given us permission to be exact who we are. The ground is so fertile here.” Friends and acquaintances are coming out of the woodwork. ​“So many people want to help,” Joseph said. ​“So many people are feeling ownership.” Their project is ​“like an echo, really,” of not just her vision, but the energy of the people around them.