Auto-photo : a life in portraits
2024
Book
Very little about the photobooth experience has changed since its inception in the early twentieth century. There is a particular charm to its inherent simplicity and repetition. The framing is fixed, as is the lighting, backdrop, and time between photographs. Only we, the subject, are the ones that change. 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. In 2018, with the booth at Flinders Street Station facing imminent closure, Christopher Sutherland and Jessie Norman - whose operation later became known as Metro-Auto-Photo - began working with Adler to generate interest in his work and to successfully save his photobooth. Now in his nineties, Adler has since sold his photobooths to Metro-Auto-Photo, who have compiled this publication with the CCP and Perimeter to illuminate Adler, his unique collection, and his impact on Australia's photography history. Auto-Photo: A Life in Portraits, which will be launched ahead of a major exhibition in 2025, features texts by Patrick Pound, Catlin Langford, and Daniel Boetker-Smith, along with an interview with Alan Adler, Jessie Norman, and Christopher Sutherland. This book is an ode to a man who, by sustaining the production of photographs, actively lives through them.
Main title:
Auto-photo : a life in portraits / [commissioning editor, Daniel Boetker-Smith ; editor, Catlin Langford].
Author:
Boetker-Smith, Daniel, editorLangford, Caitlin, editor
Edition:
First edition of 1000.
Imprint:
Melbourne, Australia : Centre for Contemporary Photography and Permiter Editions, [2024]©2024
Collation:
255 pages : illustrations (some colour), portraits ; 23 cm
ISBN:
9781922545350 (pbk)9781922545350 (paperback)
Dewey class:
779.209945779.2
Language:
English
Subject:
BRN:
818589
| Location | Collection | Call number | Status/Desc |
|---|---|---|---|
| East Melbourne Library | Local History Non Fiction | LH 779.2 ADLE | Available |
| East Melbourne Library | Local History Reference | LH REF 779.2 ADLE | Not for loan (Set: 22 Nov 2024) |
| Kathleen Syme Carlton | -Art and Culture | ARTS 779.2 ADLE | Available |
| Library at the Dock | Local History Non Fiction | LH 779.2 ADLE | Available |
| narrm ngarrgu Library and Family Services | Local History Non Fiction | LH 779.2 ADLE | Available |
| North Melbourne Library | Local History Non Fiction | LH 779.2 ADLE | Available |