Welcome to OMiD museum, Home of Opto-Mechanical Institute of Design.
We are dedicating time, and effort to preserve opto-mechanical design history. This is so crucial during our times because most of the information about optomechanics, specially the photographic history is being lost. Museums have been at most ambivalent about this recognition. The photo industry has been so pure in its search of its self worth: Like cinema, camera design has not been swallowed by militaristic ambitions, or entirely robbed by misguided sex industry. No camera design has been bestowed a permanent platform of fame, and no high-pitched price has kept it in custody of aristocracy. Falling prices of film cameras has brought even Hasselblad to its Knees. This has been so because its crucial customer has been us, the ever so curious ordinary people.
At OMiD museum, we have a fair number of cameras, optical instruments, telescopes, microscopes, watches, precision machine tools, a good collection of books, DVD, and a patent library. My wife has the same passion about preserving artifacts, and she has added her own collection of handcrafted dolls, music boxes, clocks, porcelain, and glassware from all over the world. We even keep some of my grandfather’s original hand drawn rug designs. We look through these artifacts at what is to be learned, and what is to be appreciated in the world around us. An experienced watchmaker once said: “A watch is only perfect because of its hand made imperfections! This is because while you are staring at second hand of a hand made watch, you might notice it's not lining up with every second mark on the dial. That makes you stop and think why that is, and that's what makes it perfect”.
In the same way, every artifact in our museum is there to make us stop, and think, and to rediscover. Every museum has been at some point, kept open with private donations, and we hope to establish OMiD as an independent public museum soon. We publish a quarterly magazine which is obtainable at Optomechanix.org. Please visit our "Publications" page to also see our technical books, and our "Documentary Videos" page. Also visit our omid_museum page on Instagram.
We disassemble everything we have to study its design
Studying prior art is your best teacher
Anyone could be your teacher, but that's just up to you. Our mind is like a living library. As we get old, we get a habit of adding new books only if they are about the books that are already in. Once your time line crosses a new teacher, take everything out so you could place what he/she teaches you in an emptied book shelf. Imagine all your older books scattered on the floor ...
After finding the right place for this new book, carefully start putting back other books in the shelves, but this time it will be in an entirely new order. You’ll be seeing an entirely new library. You’ll find so many interesting books that you never noticed were there. In her last song “No regrets”, Edith Piaf sang: "I must start anew, I regret nothing at all, not the good times I had, not the pain means nothing to me, I don’t regret nothing at all, because my life, and my joy today, begins with you.”
Cameras are designed for ordinary people, and that has so much in it to learn, and to study about. Cameras are optomechanics, and nowadays optoelectroncis for the masses. The iPhone design is one of the most difficult tasks for anyone to take part in because it doesn't allow favoritism. The mobile phone won over the camera industry because it listened more. Leica went belly up at one point because they weren't listening. Hasselblad went belly up at one time because they weren't producing. It's like waves on a shore, or the wind in desert, erasing the footprints, to let you show yours. How is it that all this left to run world remains so beautiful, we must have got it all wrong.