The Focam is a small private museum that contains photographs that range from the invention of photography to the present day.
The Foto Casa Museo de Requena (FOCAM) is in the district of La Villa de Requena, in an small, humble old house with five floors. The exhibition spaces have been adapted to the characteristics of the building and they tell the history of photography from its invention in France in 1839 up to the arrival of the digital era a little before the millennium.
The exhibitions are divided into 6 rooms:
- Room A: First steps. Some of the oldest photographs in the museum archives are on display, stereoscopic photography with a range of cameras and viewers of the period, the first non-professional photograph invented by Kodak, the first Polaroid camera…
- Room B: The negative; plate, roll… up to the famous Leica and its universal negative carrier that led to a revolution in camera manufacture.
- Room C: Studio photography; a notable part of the exhibition are the magic lanterns, precursors of transparencies and slides, large and medium format bellows cameras. Images from the museum archives along with illuminated photos and other types of photography that appeared over the years.
- Room D: Photography for all: a huge collection of cameras made after the appearance of the universal standard or 35 mm negative camera.
- Room E: Temporary exhibitions.
- Room F: photo library, newspaper archive, library, archive.