Emil Costandi was born in Yafa on 6 December 1929 to a father named Bishara and a mother named Sarwa. He pursued his primary education at Zion School in Jerusalem and secondary education at the al-Amiriya School in Yafa, where he graduated from the Commerce Section. After the Nakba, he immigrated to Lebanon and studied commerce and economics at the American University in Beirut.

The collection falls under the framework of the family archive, and documents the life of Emil Costandi between the 1950s and 1960s. It consists of materials related to Costandi's education and his family in different places such as Jerusalem, Yafa, Lebanon and Egypt. In addition to his photographs, it includes photographs of his friends from Yafa, who were forcibly displaced to Amman in 1948, which they sent to him, and others documenting his work in the Qatari city of Dukhan, where he worked as a typist for the Contracting and Trading Company (CAT). With regard to documents, the collection contains a passport belonging to Costandi, and a booklet prepared by Salim Barakat, who was then a friend of the family, as Barakat was an independent tour operator in Yafa, and this booklet dates back to after 1912.