Vale Maxwell's 'Max' Adams: 1920-2010

One of the photo industry’s last great ‘characters’, Max Adams, died on June 22 at the age of 89.

Maxwell Adams was born on August 15, 1920, and gave his name to the photo division of the 16mm Australia company, Maxwell Photo Optics, on its formation in 1959.

Max had served the company in a number of roles, including state manager for Victoria.

When 16mm Australia had accumulated too many agencies in the 1950s for any one company to support, Keith Russett, the then managing director of the company, appointed Max Adams as general manager.

Max, being the showman he was, piped up: “Then it better be called Maxwell Photo Optics,” which the subsidiary company was then named!

Max retired prematurely due to poor health in 1980, handing over the reins to Grahame Stewart and Peter Saidey, both of whom pre-deceased him.

In recent years, Max lived out his retirement in Ballina and once expressed disappointment when he could no longer provide Meals on Wheels for “the old folks.” By then he was in his early eighties!

Max Adams was a product of another era - larger than life - huge on relationships and a devoted family man.

He was married to Una for 65 years. Together, they entertained everyone at countless industry get-togethers around a piano as they proceeded through the Frank Sinatra song book with Max belting out the big numbers.

His rendition of ‘My Way’ was legendary and was last heard in 1986 at his industry farewell on the occasion of his 65th birthday at a function at the offices of Maxwell Optical Industries, the successor company to Maxwell Photo Optics.

Max was the man who pioneered annual photography awards for the newspaper pictures viewed by millions of Australians each day.

He founded the Australian Press Photographer of the Year awards in 1969, following a lead from his counterpart organisation in the UK, Rank-Pullin Photographics’ Nikon division.

The start of the awards, which lasted 31 years until 2000 when they merged with the Walkley journalism awards, coincided with the adoption of the new ‘small format’ 35mm cameras from Nikon, including the legendary Nikon F in 1969.

Until then, press pictures had been taken either on the large Graflex Speed Graphics cameras or the more modern Mamiya RB-67 medium format cameras.

The era ended with the introduction in 1999 of the Nikon D1, the first dedicated digital SLR adopted by the world’s media.

Max was also instrumental in bringing together competing newspaper picture editors to provide professional judging, and also fought constantly for the rights of press photographers to have their by-lines appear next to their pictures, as did their written-journalist counterparts.

Max took great pride that his name carried on in two subsequent photo distribution businesses, Maxwell Optical Industries (1983 – 2006), and the current Maxwell company, Maxwell International Australia, both under the direction of John Swainston.

He followed the developments of the industry for most of those 30 years of retirement, with regular press-cuttings arriving in Maxwell in-boxes when the company was named in the media.

His interest in the development of press photography continued to the end.

In the last conversation with this writer just eight weeks ago, I described a lecture I was to give on the development of photography to the Northside Creative Club. His parting words then, as after each of those calls over 30 years, was ‘Good on yer, son!'. 

As one of the fathers of Australia’s photo industry, he will be sorely missed.

Max Adams is survived by daughter Vicky and son Miles, to whom are extended the photo industry’s sympathies.

- John Swainston, managing director Maxwell International Australia.