Auto-Photo - A Life in Portraits

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. 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 and would undertake weekly testing and servicing on each photobooth by taking a seat in the booth and producing 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.