hunting for vintage cameras in jaipur - box camera housing

Take a walk in the old town of Jaipur later in the afternoon-
Chaotic, colorful and broken buildings-
It was the beginning of an interesting photographer's exploration of me.
At the beginning, I happened to find a man in his 40 s with an old set of black and white Polaroid photos in his hand.
"Look at my minute camera, Madam, please take a picture for a minute," he said . ".
I turned around and found a tripod.
A 1860-inch Carl Zeiss camera was put on my face.
The camera's body is covered in worn black leather with brass hardware.
Not long ago, there were many street photographers scattered around Jaipur, but now only sulenda and his brother Tikam Chand are still using these old box machines.
In fact, their cameras have been doing their daily work for the last 30 years.
"This camera was bought by my grandfather and then my father used it and now my brother and I use it," Surendar said . ".
When he saw visitors passing by with large lenses and cameras, he said, "Photography is an art that gets lost in this digital madness.
"The retro portrait of a hundred dollars in the background of the salmon-colored walls of Rajasthan palace, the old box camera suddenly seemed to me like the door to the lost world.
Camera, guardian of all stories.
Before the appearance of metal and plastic cameras, this handmade wooden camera
Under the sponsorship of the Jaipur royal family, photography is booming and they hire photographers to take their portraits.
But today, Surendar, the proud owner of these five box cameras, felt lonely in his career as most of his friends sold their cameras.
However, the sudden arrival of a tourist bus made him jump.
He lured a group of middle-aged French tourists to buy souvenirs.
As a photographer, I can tell you that using these wooden cameras is an art.
Surendar adjusts his camera lens back and forth on an ancient track, and then loads the negatives.
He has been hiding under a black cloth to make sure the frame is up to standard.
He then moved to the front and cleverly removed the lens cover to capture the image in a second.
There is a built-in black room behind the box, and he is busy dipping the photographic paper into the fixer and developing chemicals to produce negative pieces.
Then repeat the whole process to get positive results.
Most of his clients are either tourists who occasionally feel nostalgic pain or local villagers who need passport photos.
Price of finished portrait?
100 rupees, passport size 30 rupees.
The next morning, art and life as a photographer, with some hints from the old inhabitants of Jaipur, I moved to Ram nice garden to find more of this dying street photographer
But it turns out that they were the people of the past and the only thing left was the old background used by a small photography studio.
Studio owner raju is now a tour guide during the day and a wedding photographer at night.
Further investigation found that his father was a street photographer and he still put his wooden camera in the store as a pass heir.
"It's too much trouble to use the old camera to find fixtures and chemicals," Raju moaned.
For the Charne family, however, the reliable old box seems to be the brother's most precious property, as it holds their house of five.
A friend of Surendar Chand added: "He is an institution and has not changed.
There is no doubt that he came here every day and set up his temporary studio near the Hawa Taj Mahal.
"I bought a wooden camera from Raju for a small price.
It has encouraged me to start thinking that photography is more than just a crazy act of clicking a button.