The Afghan Box Camera has been used in Afghanistan for over a century. It’s unlike any other camera in the world, and this beautifully peculiar device, along with the culture surrounding it, is on the verge of disappearing.

In response, Austrian artist Lukas Birk and Irish ethnographer Sean Foley started the Afghan Box Camera Project (ABCP), a photo documentary that aims to document and preserve this “unique and previously unknown culture of photography.” The duo first encountered the camera back in 2005 while working on a project about tourism in Afghanistan. Their inherent interest in the visual arts, creative processes and storytelling drew them back to the country in 2011 to create a lasting record of the Afghan Box Camera.

“The Box-Camera has been the photographers' tool to take ID and portrait photographs in Afghanistan for the last 100 years,” Birk said. “Slowly but surely, digital is taking over and most photographers are moving to the cheaper and easier way of taking photographs.”

Together, Birk and Foley have created an enduring record of both the box camera and its respective photographers in the form of a comprehensive website AfghanBoxCamera.com.

The kamra-e-faoree or “instant camera” as it’s most commonly called, is the hallmark of the Afghan box camera photographer. At first glance, the kamra-e-faoree resembles a large format camera – a bulky wooden box set upon a sturdy tripods – but inside the workings are quite different.

“When we started out, we knew next to nothing about photography by Afghans,” Birk said. “Research by others on the subject is pretty scant, so you could say our real interest in Afghan photography developed once we hit the ground and got going - when we could witness the beauty of the subject firsthand.”

The wooden housing serves as both a camera and a darkroom: focusing is applied manually via a sliding wooden dowel, and two small trays of chemical and photosensitive paper are stored within the box itself. Once the image is made, the photographer uses a light-tight sleeve to slide one of their arms through, where they process the prints by hand.

“We also brought along our own homemade box camera the first year, which definitely helped break some ice and show that our interest was genuine,” Birk says. “Getting Afghan photographers to show us how to use the camera put them in a position where they could show off their talents, and criticize ours -- which frequently happened.”

To support the project, Birk and Foley initiated two Kickstarter campaigns in 2011 and 2012, and the ensuing donations allowed them to travel throughout Afghanistan on two separate occasions. They visited the capital city of Kabul, as well as Jalalabad, Mazar-e-Sharif and Peshawar in Pakistan, where they sought out and collaborated with local photographers in order to learn their customs and understand the technology behind their peculiar cameras.

“What we ended up with was a much more substantial overview of the subject, with a large archive of images, a collection of techniques, illustrative films, dozens of interviews, and, after we published the material online, a small community of photo-enthusiasts who began to spring up around the kamra-e-faoree,” Birk says.

The magic and visceral appeal of the box camera has fascinated photographers around the world, prompting talented individuals such as Rodrigo Abd, Landry Dunand, and Romain Lefevre Roland to buy or build their own.

Afghan Box Camera, the book, is also currently in production and scheduled to hit bookshelves before the end of the year.

“Afghans love a good story, as do we,” Birk added. “As far as we're concerned, we're retelling a good story we heard.”

Images and captions courtesy the Afghan Box Camera Project.