The orthodontist who built a museum of cameras in Chennai

Back in 1997, a Chennai-based orthodontist held his first twin-lens reflex camera at a flea market in the city, and that find set off a lifelong passion. All these decades later, it has grown into a collection of about 5,800 still photography cameras, earning him a Guinness World Record for the largest collection of cameras and the most distinctive assemblage of film cameras. Each piece, from rare Polaroid models and box and folding cameras to pocket-sized miniatures, finds its place in his camera museum in Kovalam. Behind this vast collection, A.V. Arun balances his hobby while practising dentistry full-time since the 1990s.

“I have clearly kept my profession and passion distinct,” says Dr. Arun. “Pracising dentisty is simply essential. It helps me run my life and sustain it. However, what makes it worth living is always my passion.” Dr. Arun’s collector’s instinct was a part of him even before he arrived at dentistry. It started with bottle caps when he was in school, then miniature perfume bottles, and somewhere along the way, it evolved into a camera museum.

Cameras from all over the world

Whenever his dentistry conferences take him to other parts of the world, the orthodontist finds himself at the local flea markets after work. “Once, in Australia, I picked up about 40 cameras for a throwaway price,” he says. “So, you will find pieces in the museum from all the crannies of the world.”

The precision and patience that dentisty demands seems to spill over seamlessly into his world of cameras too. When asked how he manages to juggle between both, he says the answer is simple: “No one’s ever too busy.” “After clinic hours, I come home to reading about cameras, cleaning them, tinkering with them -- sometimes even until 1 a.m.”

For someone surrounded by thousands of cameras, curiously, Dr. Arun doesn’t take too many photos himself. “Not many develop film these days,” he says. “It’s too expensive. But I’m more of a collector than a photographer.”

Collector’s eye

When Dr. Arun first started collecting film cameras, there was not much competition, but that changed over time. “Once, someone from Chandigargh called me up saying he had a completely wooden, British-make camera,” he recalls. “Since it was made that way, courier wasn’t ideal, and I took a train all the way there to bring it back myself.” Well, that camera, dating back to the 1870s, is one of the oldest in his collection.

“These days, collecting cameras is slowly making a comeback among young people too. And it is quite true -- what is useless to one person could be treasure to another. Only a true collector can see that.”

The camera museum in Kovalam opens only on Sundays, and only by appointment, to welcome fellow camera aficionados. Alongside, he also visits colleges to give talks on the history and mechanics of cameras, because some passions, as it turns out, deserve their own aperture of time.