The Ali Sami Aközer Collection includes 171 photographs of the artist's own photo shoots. The collection includes a wide variety of subjects, barracks, military training and ceremonial photographs, as well as landscapes, recreation areas, family photographs, and portraits.

Ali Sami Aközer had a military background, graduating in 1886 from the Mühendislikhane-i Berri-i Hümayun school as an lieutenant in the artillery division. He went on to work as a painting and photography teacher at the same school. After performing the task of photographing various parts of Anatolia, he became the aide-de-camp of Abdülhamid II in 1889. He then worked as an art teacher at the School of Engineering and as a painting teacher in Trabzon. Ali Sami Aközer lived between 1866 and 1936. He has works in the “Pierre De Gigord Collection” at the Getty Research Institute.