[Auto-Photo: A Life in Portraits]
Co-published by Perimeter Editions and the Centre for Contemporary Photography, Auto-Photo: A Life in Portraits tells the story of Alan Adler, a man who is likely the most photographed person in Australia, and is also perhaps the oldest and longest-serving photobooth technician in the world.
For more than fifty years, Adler maintained a suite of photobooths across Melbourne/Naarm – most notably, at a site near Flinders Street Station – and would undertake weekly testing and servicing on each photobooth across his network. To ensure the focus, flash, and print quality were all up to standard at the end of each service, Adler would take a seat in the booth and produce a test strip of photographs. Through these weekly tests, Adler produced an archive of thousands upon thousands of photographs. While his decades-long operation has contributed to the photography of over a million people, these self-portraits are the only surviving record of Adler’s life’s work – a tangible document of his role in maintaining the photobooth tradition. The images that appear in Auto-Photo, which span from the 1970s to the 2010s, give us clues about the person who inhabits them, along with the passing of time. Adler’s gappy grin, comedic expressions, and pet cats intermingle with shifting fashions, retro colour film tints, and an increasing crinkling around the eyes.
[Year completed] 2024
[Commissioning editor] Daniel Boetker-Smith
[Editor] Catlin Langford
[Design] Clayton Walker
[Copyediting and proofreading] Ash Holmes, Justine Ellis, Dan Rule
[Papers] Mirabell 250 gsm, Munken Print Cream 1.8 90gsm
[Scope] Publication Design, Books
[Press] It’s Nice That, PH Meuseum, PHOTO 2024, British Journal of Photography
For more than fifty years, Adler maintained a suite of photobooths across Melbourne/Naarm – most notably, at a site near Flinders Street Station – and would undertake weekly testing and servicing on each photobooth across his network. To ensure the focus, flash, and print quality were all up to standard at the end of each service, Adler would take a seat in the booth and produce a test strip of photographs. Through these weekly tests, Adler produced an archive of thousands upon thousands of photographs. While his decades-long operation has contributed to the photography of over a million people, these self-portraits are the only surviving record of Adler’s life’s work – a tangible document of his role in maintaining the photobooth tradition. The images that appear in Auto-Photo, which span from the 1970s to the 2010s, give us clues about the person who inhabits them, along with the passing of time. Adler’s gappy grin, comedic expressions, and pet cats intermingle with shifting fashions, retro colour film tints, and an increasing crinkling around the eyes.
[Year completed] 2024
[Commissioning editor] Daniel Boetker-Smith
[Editor] Catlin Langford
[Design] Clayton Walker
[Copyediting and proofreading] Ash Holmes, Justine Ellis, Dan Rule
[Papers] Mirabell 250 gsm, Munken Print Cream 1.8 90gsm
[Scope] Publication Design, Books
[Press] It’s Nice That, PH Meuseum, PHOTO 2024, British Journal of Photography
[MORE PORJECTS]