Auto Photo: A Life in Portraits - Public Opening Celebration

We are pleased to invite you to celebrate the opening of Auto Photo: A Life in Portraits at RMIT Gallery. 

A Centre of Contemporary Photography (CCP) exhibition, presented in partnership with RMIT Culture. Curated by Catlin Langford and Metro Auto Photo – Auto Photo: A Life in Portraits is a distinctly Australian story.

Alan Adler, while little known, was the oldest and longest serving photobooth technician in the world. For over 50 years, Adler maintained a suite of photobooths across Melbourne/Narrm, most notably the site at Flinders Street Station. 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. Adler’s story shows a fascinating dedication to repetitious image making and is supported by the stories of Melbourne creatives who passionately worked in his photobooths.

Auto Photo: A Life in Portraits presents the history of the photobooth and its cultural significance alongside visual narratives told by the community who preserve and use Adler’s photobooths to record their lives or as a means of creative expression.

The exhibition will feature Alan Adler’s extensive archive, alongside additional exhibits and works of art from the collections of Katherine Griffiths, Mark Holsworth, Kyle Archie Knight, Ruth O’Leary, Nicky Makin, Brian Meacham, Metro Auto Photo, Patrick Pound and Joshua Smith.