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| An upcoming exhibition describes Alan Adler as likely being the most photographed man in Australia. (Supplied: Metro-Auto-Photo) |
By Melissa Brown and staff
For Indonesian tourist Jia Zulkarnaen and her family, Flinders Street Station was on her list of must-visits in Melbourne.
"I searched things to do in Melbourne and places to visit, and this photo booth came up in my search on TikTok," she said.
The Flinders Street photo booth has operated for 65 years.
For 50 of those, it was maintained and operated by Alan Adler.
Mr Adler died last month on December 18 2024, aged 92.
As part of his weekly maintenance of a number of booths around Melbourne, Mr Adler had to take photographs of himself to test the focus, flash and print quality of the machines.
He created an archive of thousands of test strips, leading to him being described in an upcoming gallery exhibition as "likely the most photographed man in Australia" and "the oldest and longest-serving photo booth technician in the world."
He and his partner, Jess Norman, saved the Flinders Street booth from closure in 2018.
They were on their first date and it was going so well that they decided to immortalise the moment.
While in the booth — where years later, they also got engaged — they noticed a handwritten sign from Mr Adler advising he could no longer run the machine.
The pair called him and formed a partnership that saw the booth become an international attraction, then a legacy to their late mentor.
Mr Sutherland described Mr Adler as a stoic but solitary character, saying it took years of following him around on his maintenance runs and asking him questions about the machines to "crack his shell".
"It took a while to kind of convince him that we weren't going anywhere.
"It took about five years before he referred to me as his friend on a radio broadcast."
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| Jess Norman and Chris Sutherland took over the Flinders Street photo booth, saving Alan Adler's legacy. (Supplied: Jess Norman and Chris Sutherland) |
While Mr Adler first bought the Flinders Street booth as a business investment, Mr Sutherland said Mr Adler came to see it as more than just a machine in need of maintenance as he captured glimpses of the joy it invoked in visitors as they giggled and smiled in front of the camera.
But Ms Norman said it wasn't until the digital age and the creation of social media accounts dedicated to the Flinders Street photo booth that Mr Adler learnt the effect his decades of work had had on the locals and visitors to Melbourne.
"We would show him comments of people that have visited the booth," Ms Norman said.
"You know, he wouldn't have that for 48 years of his life maintaining these booths.
"He just sort of thought that was pretty dandy that it was all these people that were so thankful for what he took as his career."
"For a 92-year-old man, I think the best vocabulary of emotions he could sum up was "I have a nice fuzzy feeling inside,'" Mr Sutherland added.
Adler's dedication makes booth an international attraction
The pair reflected on Mr Adler's anonymity despite the popularity of the booth with the streams of people who continued to visit over the decades.
Mr Sutherland said his legacy went beyond the black-and-white strips of photos pinned to cork boards and fridges around the world.
"A solitary man that didn't think he was a photographer created the biggest body of work of nearly anyone alive and had such an emotional impact on people's lives."
While many people may not know Mr Adler's name, the Flinders Street photo booth itself has become a Melbourne landmark.
Mr Sutherland said it had become an item on visitors' itineraries, rather than something they just stumbled across as they walked through the city or left the railway station.
"The problem now it's become such a tourist attraction for international visitors is that I keep having to get there earlier and earlier each morning because now I'm having people from, like, South Korea with their bags from the airport," he said.
"It's kind of one of the first things that they're doing at, like, 6:30am."
Mr Sutherland said analogue photo booths began disappearing from city streets when countries began requiring digital photos for passports.
"For most people in the world, these machines haven't been around for 20, 30 years.
"For a lot of people in Asia, Indonesia, Korea, until recently so many parts of the world, no one's ever seen them before.
"Anyone under 30, if you're young, your life is all digital now so to have a physical photo with you and your loved ones, that used to be the normal thing, it's now a very rare thing."
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| The Zulkarnaen family put the Flinders Street photo booth as a Melbourne destination to visit on their travel itinerary. (ABC News: Andi Yu) |
Lord Mayor Nick Reece described the Flinders Street photo booth as one of the things that made Melbourne special.
"There is something so magical about the ritual: practising and perfecting your poses, the excited wait while the photo strip prints," he said.
Cr Reece said Mr Adler helped capture many special moments amid the hustle and bustle of the big city.
"We owe Alan a great debt of thanks — all those wild and precious moments captured on the iconic black and white slips.
"First dates, momentous occasions, mad moments — the Flinders Street Photo Booth and Alan has seen them all."
Metro Trains, which operates Flinders Street Station, has offered its condolences to Mr Adler's family and friends.
"He will be fondly remembered by passengers, many of whom used Mr Adler's photo booth at Flinders Street Station to capture their special memories over the years," a spokesperson said.
'It's very vintage': Flinders Street booth remains popular
Olivia Dekretser, 17, and Olivia Chiavaroli, 16, stopped by the booth on Thursday to capture themselves at the beginning of a milestone year.
"It's our last year of high school so we just wanted to come and take a photo for a memory of this year," Ms Dekretser said.
Ms Dekretser had come into the CBD to celebrate her birthday.
She said she first found out about the booth via TikTok last year and visited with a different friend to mark 12 months of friendship.
She said she would add the new black-and-white snaps to her display at home.
"Mine are in my room and just under my mirror where I get ready every morning," she said.
Like many others in line, Melbourne students Nuntamas and Kanokporn also spotted the photo booth on TikTok.
"I like this mood and tone when we take a photo," Kanokporn said.
"[Nowadays] photos are more colourful, but this one is old."
Year 10 students Freida and Zoey plan to keep visiting the photo booth every term to document their final years of high school.
"I found out about it from my aunt who lives in the city, and she took me here and showed me," Freida said.
"And then another time when me and Zoey were coming to the city, we thought it would be fun to try it out as well."
Freida said the physical photos wouldn't be as easily lost as a "random photo on your phone".
"It's nice owning physical photos, there's something about it," Zoey added.
"We hang it up on the wall … there's something about it being in black and white.
"It's very vintage."
Mr Adler's decades of work have been curated into a book published by the Centre for Contemporary Photography, documenting his photo booth test strips over the decades.
A gallery exhibition of his strips as well as additional contributions by photo booth users will be held at RMIT in June.
It will also mark 100 years since the first photo booth debuted in New York in 1925.
First published at ABC News, January 10, 2025
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