[Music]

my

while wandering around the streets of

kabul afghanistan i heard about an old

man

who is the last remaining person in the

country and likely the world

who is still using a massive box camera

to take portraits

we were able to get his address and

randomly showed up on his doorstep where

he greeted us inside

and quickly asked me to sit down and

remain still

for the camera so right now i'm getting

my photo taken by

this massive box camera and this is

pretty wild i don't really know what's

going on but hopefully it's gonna turn

out okay

[Applause]

i was truly amazed at the manual process

that uses to take my photo

in black and white can you just quickly

finish explaining how it works so i i

really have no idea

uh there is a paper box paper there's a

paper box here

this isn't

[Music]
is

when you have your right angle then

your photo is taken and then they they

take out

in the dark

that's why they open the box and put the

paper here

on the window in the glass here okay so

that's the location

when they catch your photo got it and

after that when they catch the photo

uh this is closed yes i don't like it

yeah they put it

[Music]

went on to tell me that his camera

is over a hundred years old and using it

has been his lifelong passion

and profession what inspired you to

start

taking pictures on this week

i really like this i like this because

it was a new thing

i was so excited to know this and then

uh there was lots of competition a lot

because at that time there

were many other photographers around

here as well

and i just love this and it was a good

way of income as well

so he was working with this he was

taking care of the family with that

full-time job yes that was a full-time

job nowadays his clients have declined

but he still enjoys using his box camera

more than

anything else and how did you learn how

to use it are you self-taught

my teacher was my cousin he taught me

this type of photography and it's like

50 60 years that i'm doing this

are you the only person left in

afghanistan that does this kind of

photography

all of them are lost this generation is

lost probably this is the only camera

that i have here

the last one and wow

this is really really special thank you

for the separate opportunity

one of the master who was making this

camera he's

now he's totally dead he's he was the

one who was making this type of cameras

and he said i ordered this camera and uh

now no he's the master yeah and now he's

the master after i got my sweet photo

taken took me down the street to

get it copied and processed

at the local camera store in all honesty

this is one of the best souvenirs that

i've ever received in

all of my travels this is such a cool

souvenir

unbelievable thank you so much that's

good wow

that's so cool man yeah okay i'll take

that to my grave with me

invited us back into his house for

a cup of tea

and fruit so we are now heading inside

here's some tea

[Music]

thank you wow

this is beautiful look at this living

room i really love how all the living

rooms in afghanistan

do not have couches or chairs but

instead a beautiful carpet where you sit

and chat with family and friends

it's also the place where everyone

gathers to eat unexpectedly

invited us upstairs to view his

entire camera collection

which really blew me away so we're up in

his attic in his house and

he's now showing me all these

accessories that he has and other really

old cameras
it's his whole life collection when uh

these cameras were in use

someone wanted to buy all of these

cameras for three hundred thousand apps

i mean afghanistan uh well now

it's like something close to five to six

thousand yeah it's so refreshing to meet

someone in the modern world who still

has this passion

for old school camera equipment when did

you first find your passion to

take pictures

it was like 55 years ago

pretty much your whole life you've made

a living through taking pictures

yes he was a photographer his whole life

how

how much did you used to sell the

pictures for like in the 70s and 80s

i mean

they were taking four passport photos

for for 60 apps

which was close to one dollar at uh at

that time

and then they had postcard type of

photos and also they had this

big type of photos so

depend on the size of the photo so that

the biggest one was like

400 laps at that time something like

eight nine dollars yeah what do you

enjoy the most about photography

in general

this is the complication of photography

was nice at that time

but i really loved it because i knew a

lot

but the problem is that right now i hate

this type like very easy everyone

holding a movie

like click click click everyone takes

photo and the passion that i loved

it it made it very easy so it's not

really interesting

for him so he really liked the challenge

of the

old fashioned photography so because of

these cameras like this one i'm holding

he does he basically doesn't

[Music]

the new cameras are nice it's very good

so the only thing is that

i cannot use them but it's okay i'm

happy technology is improving every day

so in the old days uh we liked how to

make a photo color because everything

was black and white

so sometimes we were coloring the

pictures with our hands but

day by day things are improving and it's

now now it's nice with these digital

cameras you can do like

lots of qualified good colored pictures

it also made me grateful when i realized

that my job

wasn't even possible until about 15

years ago

i mean how on earth could i film myself

with one of these massive cameras

what is one message that you want to say

to the world

what i really want is a little bit of

peace in afghanistan

that's the the main thing that we want

we just want security and peace we just

want to

live our life and nobody at least bother

us

and i hope everyone stay fine in their

houses and their cities

everywhere in the world

his teacher took this picture

that's the king of afghanistan yeah the

former king it's a it's a very famous

picture actually i saw this picture

everywhere

and this is the original one this is the

original one now

you seen that picture everywhere yeah

i've seen that picture a lot like

everywhere where there is a picture of

the

original one yes this is also

the other what does that mean for you is

that cool to see that

it's very nice actually but i didn't

know he had the picture of the king with

him

that's really valuable i'm drubinsky and

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