Alan Adler
The quiet guardian of Melbourne’s photobooths.
The Most Photographed Man in Australia
For more than fifty years, Alan Adler quietly tended to Melbourne’s photobooths - maintaining them with a precision and dedication that turned a simple trade into a lifelong craft. Every week, at each of his 16 booths, he would finish his maintenance run by sitting inside and taking a test strip to check the light, focus and chemistry. Over decades, those test strips became an extraordinary archive: thousands upon thousands of portraits, each marking the passing of time.
Unintentionally, Alan became “the most photographed man in Australia” — a humble technician whose unseen work shaped Melbourne’s cultural identity and preserved the ritual of stepping into a booth for generations.
Continuing His Legacy
In 2018, when Chris Sutherland and Jess Norman found a handwritten note inside the Flinders Street Station photobooth saying Alan could no longer maintain it, they reached out immediately. What began as a phone call grew into a friendship over 7 years.
Chris and Jess carried the torch of Alan’s life’s work and the Flinders Street Photobooth in 2022. Helped bring national attention to his story, and eventually became custodians of his entire fleet of original analogue chemical photobooths. Today, under Metro Auto Photo, they continue Alan’s work — keeping the machines alive and the tradition thriving. Every strip across Melbourne is a continuation of the craft he dedicated his life to.
A Life in Portraits
Alan’s decades of test strips — spanning the 1970s to the 2020s - have been brought together in a book published in collaboration with Perimeter Editions and the Centre for Contemporary Photography.
It is a document of a life lived in the margins of the frame.
A love letter to analogue photography.
A testament to a man who captured others by capturing himself.
An iconic Melbourne Story
Alan’s work lives far beyond the machines he maintained. It lives on fridges, in scrapbooks, inside wallets, on bedroom walls, and in the pockets of travellers who made his booth their must do stop in Melbourne. Through Metro Auto Photo, his tradition continues - shared by locals, visitors, couples, friends, families and anyone who wants a tangible memory in a digital world.
The Shop
From everyday totes to the Auto-Photo book documenting Alan Adler’s remarkable archive, our merch collection celebrates the people and history behind Melbourne’s real photobooths.
