He's just released a 608-page book featuring more than 500 of the world's most iconic photographs.
But for Peter Adams' daughter it is a lone portrait of her father that tells the epic story that brought the publication to life.
"I feel like this single frame tells the entire story of this project and the incredible man behind it," she said of John Swainston's photograph of Adams looking at the first print run of the book he spent almost four decades of life working on, A Few of the Legends.
"There he is, a shining light wedged in the corner between a weighty wall of boxes, some ominous shadowy recesses and a temptingly bright escape route," said Claire Adams.
"It wasn't easy getting those boxes there. He wrangled against seemingly insurmountable barriers for more than half his life to be able to stand in that very spot. And despite wanting to take advantage of that escape route a thousand times over the last 39 years, he never did."
Lovers of both photography and history can be glad he didn't succumb. A Few of The Legends tells the story of many of the world's most famous images and the photographers behind them. It began in 1982 when Adams got the idea to travel the world taking portraits of famous photographers and sharing their stories.
"The raising of the flag at Iwo Jima? The Hindenburg Disaster? The Kent State Massacre? The execution on the Viet Cong soldier in a Saigon street? Who made those pictures? What did the photographers look like? Were they still alive? The idea for A Few Of The Legends had its conception," he said.
Adams estimates he flew roughly 375,000 air miles and produced 42,000 negatives in the decades-long project - long before contacting a photographer was as simple as messaging their Instagram account.
"Someone once told me that photographing photographers was like posing a room full of cats. I am not complaining though because working on A Few Of The Legends meant I attended 500 fascinating one-on-one lectures on photography," he said.
An exhibition of images from the book was held at the Blue Mountains Cultural Centre in Katoomba last December, with the book's publication this month proving the culmination of the project.
Australian photo industry stalwart, John Swainston, described A Few of The Legends as a "masterwork".
"In my five decades in photography no other book captures so much the essence of the craft. It is a masterwork - an essential for anyone who wants to understand what photography has been about this past 100 years, worldwide. Half a lifetime's work - magic in words and images. There is truly nothing like it. Anywhere," he said.
A Few of The Legends (price $190) is available from Peter Adams' website: peteradams.com.
