Western Auto

Description

Peter Adams grew up in the UK, and at age eleven, was given a camera for Christmas by his grandfather. “That small ‘Bakalite’ Box Brownie camera started my life-long love of photography - mind you, it has been interrupted from time to time by other careers.” After high school “which I couldn’t stand and never completed”, Peter took a position as an apprentice toolmaker - the only formal training he ever had. Two and a half years later he became a London advertising photographer, taught photography at a regional art school and painted and sold abstract paintings under the name of Retep Smada. “Peter Adams spelt backwards … why not?” “In 1966 I emigrated to Australia as a ‘Ten Pound Tourist’ and, between getting on the S.S. Canberra and landing in Sydney, the advertising agency I was supposed to join had gone belly up and I was out of a job! I had about five quid in my pocket at the time!” Peter Adams (the shadow) taking his first photograph, Christmas 1952 After working as a ceiling painter for twelve months, he was hired by Bryce Courtenay as an advertising agency art director. “Whitewash,” says Peter, “was the perfect credential for being involved in the advertising business!” Adams worked in the advertising industry for 14 years - including a six-year stint in New York where he started and ran the Graphic Design and Packaging Division of Ogilvy & Mather.

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