Mark Edward Harris: Inside Iran

Photo © Mark Edward Harris-All Rights Reserved
Iran has been grossly maligned for political reasons by the current administration, and most Americans know it as a member of the ridiculous "Axis of Evil" moniker used by Bush. The book Inside Iran by Mark Edward Harris may redress this view.

In 1986 Mark Edward Harris set off on a four-month trek across the Pacific and throughout Southeast Asia, China and Japan. The images created on that trip brought attention to his travel/documentary photography. He since has visited and photographed in over 60 countries. His editorial work has appeared in publications including Life, Stern, GEO, Conde Nast Traveler, Islands, Spa, Playboy, Harper's Bazaar, Vogue, Elle, American Photo, The New York Times, The London Times, The Los Angeles Times Sunday Magazine as well as many in-flight magazines.

The above photograph of an elderly couple in presumably rural Iran is just wonderful.


Interview with Mark with an Iranian TV website on the book Inside Iran.

Ben Curtis: Bakhtiari Wedding

Photograph © Ben Curtis/AP-All Rights Reserved
Ben Curtis of SnapperTalk blog, brings us his work on a Bakhtiari Wedding while traveling in Iran. The audio was captured using a Zoom H2. Listening to the soundtrack, you'll hear the women's ululations, an ancient and traditional form of celebratory expressions in the Middle East and beyond.

The Bakhtiaris, who are Shi'a Muslims and speak a Persian dialect known as Luri, are one of two main nomadic groups in Iran, along with the ethnic Turkic Qashqai group. Iran has one of the largest nomadic populations in the world, an estimated 1.5 million in a country of some 70 million, according to the government's agency for nomad affairs.

Ben Curtis is currently based in Cairo, Egypt where he is Middle East Photographer & Photo Editor for the Associated Press.

Here's Ben Curtis' Bakhtiari Wedding

Newsha Tavakolian: Iran

Image © Newsha Tavakolian-All Rights Reserved
Newsha Tavakolian is a photojournalist working for Iranian press and media. She worked internationally in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Saudi Arabia. She has been published in Time magazine, Newsweek, Stern, Figaro and the New York Times.

I chose one of her very interesting photo essays for TTP: Entitled The Day I Became A Woman, it gives us a glimpse into the Shi'a Islam tradition that upon reaching the age of 9, a girl is considered a woman. In Teheran schools, that day is celebrated as Jashne Taklit, or "celebration of responsibility". While it's a largely symbolic celebration, it's from that day onwards that the girls have to wear a headscarf and start daily prayers at school. The girls are called "Angels", and although their parents may be secular or non-traditionalists, it's an important day in the lives of the families and their children.

Newsha Tavakolian's The Day I Became A Woman

Klavs Christensen: Women of Chah Faleh

Klavs is a Danish photographer who picked up photography as a hobby after graduating from The Royal Academy of Music. He started work as a freelance for various Danish magazines and organizations, and his work is based on social and cultural issues in his local neighborhood of downtown Copenhagen.

A few years ago he decided to do more work on stories of international interest but still with a focus on cultural, social and political issues. These have taken him to Iran, Egypt and Syria. He began working with WpN in January 2007.

I found his photographs of masked women from the village of Chah Faleh in south Iran to be most interesting. Many women in this region of Iran wear different kinds of masks. The tradition of these masks goes further back than the time when Islam came to Iran, but in this part of the country (especially in the villages) the tradition has been adapted as a part of hijab.

The traditional masks are black, some with gold. Within the last 30-40 years, the coloured masks started to show up and today they are subject to fashion. Klavs tells us that most of the women wearing the masks are doing it because of hijab, but some wear them only to protect their skin from the getting tanned by the sun.

Klavs Christensen