Photographic memory

Feature At the age of 33, Emad Akour has amassed an incredible collection of more than 400 vintage cameras. John Mather meets the man behind the lens.

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At the age of 33, Emad Akour has amassed an incredible collection of more than 400 vintage cameras. John Mather meets the man behind the lens. Eemad Akour doesn't look as if he worked as an international spy during the Cold War. For a start, at 33, he's too young. And, standing in his living room clad in a bright orange long-sleeved shirt, he can't stop smiling. What is spy-worthy about Akour, though, is his collection of Cold War-era cameras - from one that masquerades as a lighter to a Swiss model that doubles as a make-up case, another as a radio and a Japanese pocket camera that is only slightly larger than a dirham. It is safe to say that Akour, a lifelong Abu Dhabi resident, is obsessed with spy cameras. When it comes to photo gadgets, he could out-gun James Bond.

And spy cameras are just one part of Akour's 400-strong collection. He is also fond of old-fashioned, large-format cameras - that box-shaped accordion-like apparatus that sits on tripods. Some that he owns date back to the mid 19th century. Sitting on a couch in his living room, surrounded by his collection, which fills one entire corner and is now creeping on to other shelves, I venture a guess that Akour is the largest antique camera collector in the UAE. He is hesitant to agree. He is certainly the biggest that he knows of, but concedes, "maybe others are bigger by 100 times".

Nonetheless, his enthusiasm for antique cameras is impressive, even overwhelming, especially considering his age. Most collectors, Akour points out, are retired with adult children. In comparison, he has two children, one aged five and the other 17 months old. He says he can't explain why he is obsessed with cameras. "Why do I love these cameras? There is no reason. I love them like I love my kids. If someone asks me why I love my kids, there is no reason."

After speaking to Akour for a while, however, it becomes clear that the reason that he admires them is the innovation of the original camera-makers. His love of quirky ideas is the reason for his fascination with the spy cameras. They are the prizes of his collection, alongside some of the first machines to burn the world on to film. And so, when his son Mohamed moves to grab one of the spy cameras carefully laid out on his coffee table, Akour quickly hands the child his iPhone instead. "These are very old," he says, worrying about the collection and not the expensive gadget now making its way towards the toddler's mouth.

Holding a heavy metal Minolta, he tosses his modern Nikon SLR my way. He asks me to feel the plastic. "Now this," trading me the SLR with the Minolta, "this is metal". "I will live for 30 to 40 years more," he says, "and these cameras will still be around." Akour believes no one will collect the cameras of today in the future. The manufacturers, he says, care only about one thing. "They want money. They don't care about the items themselves. They want you to replace it, and even if you don't replace it, it will become outdated. These cameras have expiry dates, like bread and cheese."

The first old camera Akour owned was his father's, a man who didn't share his son's passion for photography. So when it had fulfilled its purpose, his father decided to throw it away. Akour got his hands on it before it had been discarded and began dissecting the gadget, learning how it worked. He collected more cameras when he first visited Jordan, where his family is from, as a teenager to complete high school and attend university. In Amman, he would visit the Friday souq, where people hawked their old wares. If he had some pocket money, he'd spend it on adding to his camera collection. If he didn't have enough money, he'd ask his friends if they had any old cameras they were not using.

The collection grew slowly, but when he returned to the UAE in 1996 and found a job working for Al Ittihad newspaper, it took off. "When I started working, I had the budget and the salary. I have collected some of my dream cameras." One of his most prized possessions is a large-format camera from 1883. There are only 10 of its kind in the world, and Akour bought his for a bargain at $5,000 (Dh18,365) five years ago. "It was as if he was selling his child," he says of the seller. "But I was very insistent about buying it."

He is also fond of his full collection of the tiny Minolta16 II cameras, in all six colours, which he pieced together from different sellers. He now has a network of camera-collecting friends around the world. He buys most of his cameras online, because there is nowhere to find them here. "There are markets here, but they are not selling original antiques. They are selling the old shape in new plastic." There also isn't a community of camera collectors. "I have heard from friends that there are some people collecting cameras, but I don't know them. People are collecting cameras all over the world, but not here."

Most of the metal cameras made after 1950 still work, although he doesn't often take photos with them. The spy gadgets also work. Akour puts a 9V battery inside the one camera that is also a radio. He turns the dial and settles on an Arabic news broadcast. He has yet to categorise his pieces, something that will change soon as he prepares to launch a website. The site will feature his cameras and other collectors can contact him to set up their own pages through his server. "Most of the collectors are very old people. They don't know how to create a website. I will help them."

The site, www.eakour.com, will be running in a few months, but he says it is purely to show off his collection. After all, like his children, Akour says his cameras are not for sale.