Kamra-e-Faoree

Well played to Lightbox for featuring the work of the guys over at Afghan Box Camera whose anthropological study of the now disappearing Kamra-e-Faoree is as fun as it is an essential piece of photo history from Afghanistan.

Above is a photo of the actual Kamra-e-Faroee that I bought from Rohullah in Kabul and shipped home for $35 courtesy of the US military - despite it weighing some seventy kilos.

I wonder now whether the decline in these magic boxes is perhaps as much due to foreign photographers becoming obsessed with their beauty and the otherworldly photos they take, rather than the onslaught of the digital revolution. I wonder also whether I too should feel guilty for my part in stripping Afghanistan of yet another layer of it's unique culture.

On my first visit to Kabul there were dozens of these street photographers working their trade downtown including Qalam Nabi (above) who is mentioned in the article. When I returned he was one of only a handful left. Here's one of my favorite portraits, taken by Nabi from my days of obsessive spending on Kamra-e-foree pictures...

Art...and like fame...and stuff.

from The Real Cindy Sherman in Harpars Bazaar...

...Last spring, Sherman's Untitled #96 (above) sold for $3.9 million, then the highest price ever paid at auction for a photograph. She says she was gratified that a photograph of hers set an auction record but also not surprised. "I felt, well, it's about time," she says. "Not that I feel it's worth that much, but so much other photography by men has been hovering in that range. I have to say I'm competitive: 'Hey, what about me? I'm in that same realm of fame as those guys.'"

Rhein II by Andreas Gursky, now the most expensive photograph ever sold at $4.3m

from Why is Art so Damned Expensive? in Newsweek/TheDaily Beast...

...“If I can’t sell something, I just double the price.” That’s what Ernst Beyeler, the great Swiss dealer who helped found Art Basel, reportedly said. Some people actually prefer to pay more than makes sense. Zelizer explains that, in all walks of life, we treat the biggest sums differently, with special respect or even awe, than more everyday money. “I think very often the price paid for a work is the trophy itself,” says Arnold Glimcher an art dealer.