A Family Story

A man of many passions, he turned each of them into a collection. An engineer with a love for history, he devoted most of his attention to vintage cameras.

As far as I can remember, I’ve always seen him scouring antique shops, fairs and flea markets across the globe in pursuit of cameras from the early 1900s to the late 1980s.

He spent his nights taking them apart and painstakingly bringing them back to life. I rarely saw him happier than when he finally heard the “click” of a shutter that had been silent for years.

This passion drove him for more than five decades and produced one of the most eclectic and captivating collections of vintage cameras, spanning eras as well as technical innovations.

As a child I spent a lot of time assisting him, carrying newly acquired camera boxes or passing him tools as he repaired them. When I grew older, he would wait for my visits to walk me through his latest acquisitions after dinner — a ritual we cherished for years.

In 2020 my father passed away, leaving behind more than two thousand devices. After two years of sorting and research, I decided to continue his legacy.

Like him, I am captivated by the cameras that shaped our worldview and our present “image society.” The 20th century — two world wars, the Cold War, the rise of photojournalism and of celebrity culture — was consumed by a photographic obsession.