Auto-Photo: Celebrating a century of the photobooth

Photobooths, long a quiet fixture of city streets, are often likened to silent passers-by – always there, capturing fleeting moments of everyday life. Now, a new exhibition brings these urban icons into the spotlight.

Auto-Photo: A Life in Portraits, which ran from June 5 to August 16, jointly presented by the Centre for Contemporary Photography (CCP) and RMIT Culture, traced the cultural and artistic legacy of the photobooth.

Marking 100 years since Anatol Josepho patented the Photomaton in 1925, the show also paid tribute to Alan Adler (1932–2024), who dedicated more than half a century to running Melbourne’s beloved booths.

Curator Catlin Langford said Adler’s booths gave people space to celebrate their lives, create memories, and even produce works of art.

“We wanted to initially celebrate Alan Adler, but also to share the impact he had by showing other artists’ work alongside his legacy,” she said.

The exhibition included collections, and strip works from a range of photobooth enthusiasts and artists.

Among them was Katherine Griffiths, who has long created self-portraits in booths using masks, costumes and backdrops. After returning from abroad, she gravitated back to her favourite booth on Flinders St.

“It was cheap, and there were almost no people when I went early in the morning,” she said. “It was, and still is, my special place in Melbourne.”

Fellow artist Ruth O’Leary presented a small selection from “hundreds and hundreds” of photobooth pictures taken since her childhood. For her, the Flinders St booth became a kind of ledger of milestones: “Boyfriends, girlfriends, haircuts, break-ups, hook-ups – moments of innocent importance that now seem trivial,” she said. “An ambition was born to represent the self, honestly, and as artifice.”

At the heart of the exhibition sat a functioning photobooth, drawing long queues of visitors eager to experience the process for themselves. Langford noted the appeal lay in its unpredictability.

“When you sit down, press the button and the flash goes off, you never quite know what you’ll get. It’s one-off – and I think it’s really nice that people today get to experience something that has barely changed in a hundred years.”