Box Camera NOW: Lukas Birk’s Afghan Box Camera Project

The Afghan Box Camera or “Kamra-e-Faoree” is a handmade device that acts as both an instant camera and a darkroom within one large contraption. It became especially popular in Afghanistan in the 1950s as a result of the government’s initiative to distribute national identity cards with photographs attached. Since then, generations of Afghans have had their portraits taken using this antique wooden camera. However, when photography was banned under the Taliban rule, many photographers hid or destroyed their tools. As a result, this particular device is on the verge of disappearing.

In 2011, Lukas Birk and Sean Foley started the Afghan Box Camera Project in Kabul and Mazar-e-Sharif in an attempt to highlight the importance of this camera in local history. The following year, the project also grew to Herat, Jalalabad and Peshawar. Here, they chronicled how the camera was used to take identification photos, especially of the refugee community. While full-body shots, portraits for non-identity purposes and images of women were outlawed under the Taliban, clandestine practices emerged to make them. The project put together an enduring record of both the box camera and the photographers behind it.

The newly-released book Box Camera NOW is the latest manifestation of Birk’s ongoing work. While the box camera witnesses a decline worldwide due to its digital counterparts in the market, Birk features more than seventy photographers from around the world who continue to use it. The web platform and the book illustrate and integrate this growing photographic community.

To read more about box cameras, please search for “The Street, Its Peoples: Box Camera Photography.”

All images from Box Camera NOW by Lukas Birk. Fraglich Publishing, 2020.

Click on the image to view the album