A life dedicated to cameras! He is unveiling his 50-year treasure

Living in Istanbul, 73-year-old lawyer Ahmet Başalan developed an interest in cameras at the age of 12. Başalan, who bought his first camera at that age, later began working at a photography studio.

 

As his interest in photography grew day by day, Başalan continued to collect cameras during his trips abroad. He kept the cameras he bought in his attic instead of selling them. Ahmet Başalan took action following the suggestion of his wife and colleague, Feriha Başalan, who told him, "You could open a museum." Hundreds of cameras were maintained. Subsequently, in Kağıthane, the floor above their own office was converted into a museum.

 

The Başalan couple will exhibit the antique cameras they have collected over nearly 50 years in this museum. At the same time, the museum will offer visitors camera hardware and accessories, photographs, and publications related to camera science and technology.

In the museum, which will tell its visitors the 200-year journey of the camera, Attorney Ahmet Başalan plans to conduct research and development work on advanced technology cameras. The museum, which will shed light on the transition from the past to today's digital photography, will also host personal and group exhibitions by many photographers and institutions throughout the year. The museum, which will open to visitors in the second week of November, will bring together those interested in cameras.

Başalan, who turned the cameras he collected in the attic into a museum, is the founder of the Istanbul Camera Museum. Ahmet Başalan said, "I am a lawyer. We tried to build a camera museum. We did it and just received the permit. Apart from that, I work on intellectual property law with my wife, Attorney Feriha Başalan. We have an office. We established the IP Academy here, which protects industrial and property rights as well as the rights of artists."

 

I have been taking photographs since I was 12 years old. And while taking these photos, we accumulated cameras over time. My first camera was a Certo. It was a German-made camera. This was actually my wife's idea. My wife said, 'Since you have so many cameras and accessories in your possession—Nikons, Leicas, Canons—you can turn this into a museum, just as people in Europe turn their collections into museums. We can do it together,' she said.

 

And that is where the idea of opening a museum was born. At first, we used to have the cameras we wanted brought in through friends and relatives we knew abroad. Later on, we started buying second-hand or purchasing new models. We exchanged those machines over time. We bought newer models. But we couldn't bring ourselves to sell them. Since we couldn't bear to sell them, we ended up collecting them. We kept them in the attic of my house for many years. Later, when the idea of a museum emerged, we decided to maintain them and put them on display. It took approximately 50 years. We were able to collect these cameras over about 50 years.

Of course, you can't bring yourself to part with these machines; you have memories attached to each one. You become integrated with those machines through the photos you take. For example, what impressed me the most was Gazi Mustafa Kemal Atatürk's own photographer, Ethem Tem. We found the exact same model of the camera used by Ethem Tem in Tokyo. We bought that camera from Tokyo.

 

We decided to display that in our museum as well. There are nearly 700 cameras. Among them are bellows cameras, spy cameras, large format cameras, reflex cameras, SLR cameras, and lenses, and we have supported all of these with their accessories. We had separate sections built to display all of them together in our museum, complete with their tripods, flashes, and various viewfinders, lenses, and filters,” he said.