Guide
The Başalan İstanbul Camera Museum is built on a single private collection. Two lawyers, Ahmet Başalan and Feriha Başalan, spent close to forty years gathering antique and professional cameras along with the hardware, accessories, photographs and published literature that go with them, and the museum now holds the lot. It sets out to cover what it calls the camera's two-hundred-year journey as an optical instrument.
The collection is weighted towards the long transition from film to digital photography, and the museum treats that as living material rather than a closed story: its programme includes solo and group exhibitions by photographers through the year, along with workshops, conferences and panels for people with an interest in the camera. There are workshops for families with children, and the museum works with universities on research into where camera technology goes next.
Beyond the galleries there is an art gallery space, the camera collection itself, the Başalan library, a shop and the Obscura café. The museum is open every day, 09:00 to 18:00.
