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Through the looking glass

For Basheer and his son, collecting antique cameras is a passion, writes ANIMA BALAKRISHNAN

PHOTOS K. ANANTHAN

BITTEN BY THE SHUTTER BUG Basheer (right) with his son Mohemed Isaq.

A generation that thinks cameras are attachments on cell phones or the light digital ones that make photography child's play would be in for a surprise in Basheer land.

Enter his 150 sq ft shop and Exas, Mirandas, Halinas, Bunnys and Baby Browns blink at you. If it were a few of them, you could have handled it. But there are 1,800 of them to tackle!

This is K.M. Basheer's Graphic Studio — the camera museum on 100 feet Road.

The two-room rented shop is home to some of the oldest and quaintest cameras. From the four-feet long bellows field camera to one of the first models of Rolleiflex to the cumbersome press cameras of yonder, all fight off age and dust in his museum.

But this unique camera haven in Coimbatore almost did not happen. A photographer by profession, Basheer found the going tough and decided to wind up business 15 years ago. "I decided to sell the 17-18 cameras I had and went to a dealer," says the 60-year-old lensman. But when he was offered more than double the expected price, he decided to give it a second thought.

"I told the dealer that I will come back later," he recounts. He never did. What followed was rigorous groundwork on antique cameras. "I came to know of the demand for old cameras in the international market and soon decided to start collecting them," he explains.

A series of advertisements in newspapers seeking antique cameras in the four Southern States later, the story began.

"People do not realise the worth of an old camera here and it would be usually abandoned in the cellar," says the man, whose affair with the lenses began at 13.

"There is a huge demand for antique cameras abroad and most of it is going from here," says the photographer who learnt the craft from his uncle.

What began as a meagre collection has now burgeoned into one filling his tiny office.

And in his kitty are some of the quaintest ones you will ever get to see. It sure is a lesson in the history of the art, but it is also about bringing alive an era long past.

The employees of Sundaram Transport still stare out of glass films 60 years later and so do the pretty damsels of Mercy College, Palakkad. These were taken with the A. Rofs 15/12 field camera used exclusively for group pictures. It is not hard to imagine the lens man disappearing behind a black cloth even as his subjects froze to be caught in time.

Other rare pieces in his stable are one of the first models of Rolleiflex with the spirit indicators and the 3D Voightlander said to be nearly 100-years-old and collected from Ooty.

"Most of the old cameras came from Ooty, especially from foreigners," says Basheer.

The smallest camera in his possession is the Japanese spy camera. Made during the Second World War, the camera is the size of the pointer finger and has a 16mm film.

There is also the heavy Mamiya Super 23 press camera with a bulb flash, a look back at an age when press photographers clicked a snap at a time and then scrambled to change the bulb.

The biggest lens in his collection is a 420 mm Voightlander Braunschwerg. Inevitably, behind every uncommon piece, there is a story. "This lens came to me when I was photographer with the Kollengode palace some 40 years ago," recollects Basheer. "An acquaintance of someone in the palace was appointed the Ambassador to the United States and my friend was his cook. This cumbersome lens was sent to me in the Ambassador's box by my friend," he says.

The wooden SLR post-card sized film camera that Basheer bought for Rs. 35,000 too has sentimental value. "The grandson of the man from whom I bought it still calls up every year to find out if the camera is intact," Basheer says with a smile.

But the cameras that come to him are not in the best of condition. That's where Mohemed Isaq, the third-generation camera enthusiast, comes into the picture. "My role ends with the buying; but it's my son who stays up all night repairing the cameras and keeps them in working condition," says the proud father.

For Basheer and his son, collecting cameras is a passion and they have resisted some tempting offers to part with them. "A gentleman was willing to buy it all for Rs. 75 lakh, but we did not oblige," says Isaq. And Basheer insists none of these cameras is for sale. "Let it remain a lesson in photography for future generations," he winds up. For details, call: 6583559.

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