Hi! Welcome to the Instant Box Camera website.

My name is Lukas Birk. I am a photographer, researcher and photo-book publisher. Box cameras have been a passion of mine for 15 years. I love the simplicity yet flexibility of the camera. So many techniques and photographic manipulations are possible and I am constantly discovering new methods and ways of using it from the practitioners out there.

The Instant Box Camera is the accumulation of years of research and experimentation with box cameras. I have built many different models and published books and instructions on the subject. My first contact was in Afghanistan in 2006, where I had photographs taken by a working box camera photographer in Mazar-e-Sharif. In 2011, I co-created the Afghan Box Camera Project with Sean Foley, coining the term Afghan Box Camera. In Afghanistan, the camera has several names, including kamera-e-faoree (instant camera). This project ventured to Pakistan (Photo Peshawar) and Sean continued in India (Indian Minute Camera).

In 2019, I started a community project called BOX CAMERA NOW, featuring photographers who use these types of cameras around the world. I also released a book that showcases 40 of these photographers. In the last two years I have focused on research in Turkey, where box cameras were widely in use until the 1970s. A book on the subject is currently in the making.

Over the years, I have created a lot of different models and formats of box cameras. The Instant Box Camera condenses and simplifies the different cameras I have come across from Turkey to Afghanistan and others, and I have built it to address our own needs.

The aim was to create an affordable, functional, lightweight yet sturdy camera that suits both amateurs and professionals, students and professors, mobile and studio photographers.

Industrial designer Andreas Huemer from Eitj Design helped me to put my building experience into a manufacturable product.

Explore the Techniques section to learn more on how to use the camera in fun and creative ways.

If you have any information on Box Cameras, their uses, history and stories around them from wherever you are, please get in touch. I am always eager to learn more about the rather obscure history of the Box Camera.

Find out more on www.boxcameranow.com / www.afghanboxcamera.com / FotoClube Lambe Lambe / Street Box Camera Worldwide.

Here some links to other projects of mine www.lukasbirk.com / www.fraglich.com / www.myanmarphotoarchive.org.

Thank you for visiting our website

Lukas