Country: United Arab Emirates
Collection Type: University
Collection Size: 1,000-10,000
Period: 1930-1960
Type of Material & Format: Black and White images Colour images Digital files Film-based negatives Prints
Website: www.zu.ac.ae

The Zayed University photograph collection includes two collections. Kuwait’s historical photographs from pre and post-independence and Palestine’s historical photographs (1947-1948).

Contact Details:
Name: Badran A. Badran, Ph.D.
Email: badran.badran@zu.ac.ae ; info@zu.ac.ae
Address: Zayed University, Box 144534, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
Tel: +971505539283

Country: Palestine
Collection Type: Museum NGO
Collection Size: 10,000-50,000
Period: 1930-1960 1960-1980 Later than 1980
Type of Material & Format: Black and White images Colour images Film-based negatives Prints
Website: http://www.yaf.ps

The Yasser Arafat Foundation was created in 2008 as an effort to gather as much photographic and video/film material relating to the late President Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian struggle in general and to research, tag and archive it as part of our National heritage.
The annual commemoration of President Arafat’s passing features an exhibition drawn from the archive based on a given theme.
Yasser Arafat museum is set to open in the near feature and will feature material from the archive as well as an online catalogue.

The collection is not available to the public.

Contact Details:
Email: mail@yaf.ps
Address: P.O. Box: 573, Ramallah, Palestine
Tel: +970 2957373

Other:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/yafps

Country: Palestine
Collection Type: Press State agency/ Ministry
Collection Size: > 50,000
Period: 1930-1960 Later than 1980
Type of Material & Format: Black and White images Colour images Digital files Film-based negatives Prints
Website: http://english.wafa.ps

Wafa, the news agency of the Palestinian National Authority, provides daily news from Palestinian territories, Israel and the Middle East in English, Arabic, French and Hebrew. It was established in 1972 as the official news agency of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) and now the Palestinian Authority. In 2008, a presidential decree made it a public agency.

WAFA’s photograph collection spans the PLO years in Jordan, Lebanon, Tunisia, the Occupied Territories, and the Palestinian National Authority. It includes around one million negatives, mostly Black and White until 1982, color negatives prior to the digital age and donations from 1948. Many are secured in Gaza while approximately 20,000 are stored in Ramallah.

The collection is partially catalogued and available online, and is accessible for researchers. It is archived with published news stories and is still expanding. It has resulted in daily news, publications, PLO posters and postcards.

Contact Details:
Name: Nawaf Hamed, Editor in Chief
Email: nawaf@wafa.ps ; nnh22@hotmail.com
Address: WAFA Palestine News & Info Agency
Mecca Building Center – Third Floor, Transmission Street, Ramallah, Palestine
Tel: +970 598926200 (Nawaf mobile)

Country: Lebanon
Collection Type: Private collection
Collection Size: 10,000-50,000
Period: 1860-1900 1900-1930 1930-1960
Type of Material & Format: Black and White images Colour images Digital files Film-based negatives Glass plates positives and/or negatives Prints
Website: http://www.thefouaddebbascollection.com/

The Fouad Debbas Collection (TFDC) is a private collection of postcards and photographs from the Ottoman and French mandate periods in the Middle East, covering over one hundred years from 1830-1960. The collection, assembled over twenty-six years, comprises about 35,000 images. These include approximately 16,000 postcards, 15,000 original prints (as individual prints, cabinet cards and cartes de visite or prints mounted in albums), 600 stereographs, as well as 500 slides or glass plate negatives and positives. Documents, such as letters dating from the 1860s, engravings and drawings from the first half of the 19th century, and manuscripts containing images, are also conserved in The Fouad Debbas Collection.

The documents deal mostly with the beginning of photography in the Middle East and especially in Lebanon, during the second half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century. The photographs originate largely from professionals who had their studio in Beirut, Jerusalem, Constantinople or Cairo, such as Sebah (1823-1886) in Constantinople and Cairo, Charlier (1822-1907) and Dumas (1830-1905) in Beirut, and Beato (ca.1835-1906) in Luxor. The collection also holds an important collection of Bonfils photographs by Félix, father (1831-1885), Adrien, son (1861-1929), and Lydie, Félix’s wife (1837-1918). Based in Beirut from 1867 to the 1910s, the French Bonfils studio can be considered the most prolific producer of images of the Middle East for the European market. Other holdings include early photographs of the monuments of Egypt and Palestine by the likes of Nau de Champlouis (1833-1978), Frith (1822-1898) or Bedford (1816-1894), as well as aerial views taken by the French aviation in the 1920s-1940s, with a focus on archeological sites and city views.

The collection is catalogued and partly available on the website.

TFDC is the subject of exhibitions in Lebanon and abroad as well as a number of publications by Fouad C. Debbas: Beirut Our Memory, an illustrated tour in the old city from 1880 to 1930 (ed. Folios, 1986, reed.1994); Des photographes à Beyrouth 1840-1918 (ed. Marval, 2001); Early photographs of Mount Lebanon (ed. Folios, 1996), and Voyages en Orient, Journal de la Comtesse de Perthuis, 1853-1855 et 1860-1862 (ed. Dar An-Nahar, 2007).

Contact Details:
Name: Yasmine Chemali, Collection representative
Email: ychemali@thefouaddebbascollection.com

Other:
Other online resources:
http://fouaddebbas.org/Publications.aspx
http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/endangeredarchives/2014/03/french-photographer-beirut-1867-1907.html
http://eap.bl.uk/database/results.a4d?projID=EAP644

Country: Kuwait
Collection Type: Museum Private collection
Collection Size: 1,000-10,000
Period: 1930-1960 1960-1980 Later than 1980
Type of Material & Format: Black and White images Colour images Digital files Film-based negatives
Website: http://www.trmkt.com/

The Tareq Rajab Museum holds the personal photograph collection and records of Tareq Rajab, the first director of Antiquities and Museums in Kuwait in the 1950s. He opened a Museum of Islamic art and a museum of Calligraphy in the 1980s to house the artefacts he and his wife had been collection during their travels in the Islamic world, and beyond Central and South-east Asia.

Tareq Rajab was passionate about photography and documented the evolution of Kuwait and the region over six decades, and in particular the Marshes of Iraq. The photograph collection consists of 10,000 images dating from 1960 onwards, including Tareq Rajab’s own photographs. It comprises film-based negatives, digital files, Black and White images and color images.

Tareq Rajab has published twelve books including Glimpses of the Recent Past: Kuwait 1960-1965, The Carved Wooden Doors of Kuwait, the Gulf & Yemen, and Tareq Sayid Rajab And the development of fine art in Kuwait

Contact Details:
Name: Ziad Rajab, Collection representative
Email: zrajab@gmail.com
Address: PO Box 6156 Hawelli 32036 Kuwait
Tel: +965 25317358

Country: Palestine
Collection Type: Private collection
Collection Size: > 50,000
Period: 1930-1960 1960-1980 Later than 1980
Type of Material & Format: Black and White images Colour images Digital files Film-based negatives Glass plates positives and/or negatives Prints

Studio Shahrori is a private studio which caters to private clients.
The studio was established by Islam Shahrori’s father in 1952 in Nablus, Palestine. Over time, it opened four shops in Nablus. The founder often went out of the studio to photograph special events such as visits by the pope, official visits from King Hussein of Jordan, and celebrities such as Um Kulthum, etc. The shops are now run by the fathers’ eight sons.
The studio has scanned around 1000 photos of public events and city dwellers. This does not include individual’s personal photos of weddings, funerals, etc.

Contact Details:
Name: Islam shahrori
Email: shahrori_photo@yahoo.com
Address: Gharnata St., Nablus, Palestine / P.O.BOX:162
Tel: +970599231179 (mob), +97092371621 (land)

Country: Qatar
Collection Type: Museum Private collection
Collection Size: 1,000-10,000
Period: 1930-1960 1960-1980 Later than 1980
Type of Material & Format: Black and White images Colour images

Sheikh Faysal Bin Qassim Al Thani Museum is the only institution in Qatar which is not under the authority of Qatar Museum Authority or Qatar Foundation.

Sheikh Faysal Bin Qassim Al Thani has been collecting artefacts for over forty years. He started collecting watches, later extended his interest to photographs before starting a general collection of any artefact in the world worth collecting. His extensive collection is made of cars, Islamic art, furniture, paintings, coins, religious objects, etc and photographs. The museum, located in the desert 30km from Doha, opened to the public in 1998 and his museography is of a wide organised warehouse.

In terms of photographs, the museum preserves and displays portraits of the ruling al-Thani royal family and members and forebears along with photographs of the sheikh in different moment of his life: the sheikh hunting, fishing, driving, eating, receiving foreign officials, etc. It also includes photographs of life in Qatar before the oil boom, and memorabilia of famous arab actors and Saddam Hussein.

Contact Details:
Name: Dr Talib Al-Baghadadi
Email: talibalbaghdadi@hotmail.com
Address: P. O. Box: 6 Doha – Qatar
Tel: +974 486 1444

Other:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SheikhFaisalMuseum/

Country: United Arab Emirates
Collection Type: Museum State agency/ Ministry
Collection Size: < 1,000 Period: 1900-1930 1930-1960 1960-1980 Type of Material & Format: Black and White images Colour images Film-based negatives Slides (positives) Website: http://www.sharjahmuseums.ae/ The Sharjah Museums Department (SMD) was established in 2006 by His Highness Dr Sheikh Sultan bin Mohammed Al Qasimi, Supreme Council Member and Ruler of Sharjah, as an independent government department. SMD includes 16 museums covering Islamic art and culture, archaeology, heritage, science, marine life and the history of Sharjah and the region. The purpose of the Sharjah Museums Department is to deliver the highest quality of museums services for the people of the Emirate of Sharjah and its visitors, through its facilities, exhibitions, learning programs, research and community outreach. It also aims to achieve locally and internationally an understanding and appreciation of Sharjah’s identity and for the value of its cultural and natural heritage. The museum’s photographic collection covers the period between the 1930s and 1960s with less than 1,000 images consisting of film-based negatives, Black & White and colour images. The collection is still expanding and is partially catalogued. Contact Details: Name: Amna Al Humairi, documentation officer / Hazelle Page, collection representative Email: aalhumairi@sharjahmuseums.ae / hpage@sharjahmuseums.ae Address: PO Box 39939, Sharjah, UAE Tel: +971 65566002