Auto-Photo: A Life in Portraits coming to Melbourne

One of the self-portraits taken by photobooth technician, Alan Adler, during more than 50 years of servicing Melbourne’s photobooths.

Developed by the Centre for Contemporary Photography (CCP) and presented in partnership with RMIT Culture, the exhibition features the work of Alan Adler, Australia’s oldest and longest serving photobooth technician – and likely also the oldest in the world. For over 50 years, Adler has been maintaining a suite of photobooths across Melbourne/Narrm, most notably, the site near Flinders Street Station. His story reflects the local communities and a shared dedication and passion for image-making and creative expression.  As part of his business, Adler would undertake weekly services of his photobooths, a process that produced a strip of photographs to check focus, flash and print quality, leading to an archive of thousands of photographs. These self-portraits are the only surviving record of Adler’s impact and his role servicing these photobooths. Since the 1970s, he has contributed to the photography of over a million people.

Also on display will be additional works by and drawn from the collections of Katherine Griffiths, Mark S.Holsworth, Kyle Archie Knight, Ruth O’Leary, Nicky Makin, Jesse Marlow, Brian Meacham, Metro Auto Photo, The Photobooth Technicans Project (Jen Grasso and Marco Ferrari), Patrick Pound and Joshua Smith. The exhibition will run until 16 August and is free of charge. Click here for gallery details.