A Peek into the History of Photography 2016 from ICAT, Chennai

There is no doubt on how museums engage and develop the community and illustrate the time period on history, culture and technology. UG Photography students of ICAT Design & Media College, Chennai visited the India’s First Photography and Vintage Camera museum owned by Dr. A.V. Arun, a passionate Camera Collector at Kovalam ECR, Chennai.

The museum houses the personal collection of cameras of Dr. A.V. Arun that traces the history of photography and contains at least 1500 vintage and antique cameras. The students were made to explore the principles of Penta prism and also the timeline of vintage cameras. Students also had the opportunity to learn about film development and revolution in film technology.

Dr. Arun gave students an in-depth understanding of development of camera in terms of invention, manufacturing and engineering. The students had an exciting experience to see the 1895 camera, which was 6 feet long and 5 feet tall. The overall experience of understanding technologies used years back in photo processing created great enthusiasm and eagerness among the students group.

Student's Feedback:

"We, a team of 17 first year students visited Dr. A.V. Arun Vintage Camera and Photography museum at ECR on 26th of March, 2016. Dr Arun is an Orthodontist. He started collecting vintage cameras since 1998 from different places that he visited. During a lecture session, he showed us different cameras that were used through the history of photography. It was thrilling to see the ancient big size camera Obscura. We were excited to even imagine how technology has shrunk the size of cameras to the size of modern DSLR now. The whole decor was amazing with wide range of cameras. We were all very pleased to see what we had just seen in books. Thanks to Dr. Arun for his time and knowledge sharing, and to our faculty Mr. Vinod Kumar for giving us such an opportunity. Also, thanks to Mr. Gilbert who accompanied us to the museum." Donald YumnamPhotography Dept