manifesto

free

I am not a professional photographer and I do not wish or intend to become one either. For me photography is a way to learn how to better see the world. I bought my own first digital camera in 2003 and since then, I have practiced “seeing”.

I am not against being meticulous or hardworking or even being a geek in photography, however I assume that being a professional photographer has the potential to limit -instead of widen- my options.  When I am an amateur; I am not limited to make my living out of my photographs, therefore I can maintain my absolute sense of freedom in my work. I have the option to totally ignore the world, if I decide to do so. I admire those photographers who are free in their hearts and take photos to experience their creativity and freedom of expression. So viva free photography!

abstract

I am from Iran, but you may not find much location-related photos in my stream. Why? Because I am not much fond of time-location specific photographic narration. I prefer to be detached from temporal-spatial and even semantic perspectives, one may call it “abstract” photography. It is one of my favorite forms of photography, because it allows me to CUT (yes, photography is all about cutting) the meanings and keep patterns, textures and curves. That’s what I am more interested in.

as-it-is

I am not a purist at all and I think people who call themselves purists are confused at best about how photographic process actually works. Photographs are not “real” and they are not supposed to be so, because reality is simply non-reducible. The moment you start to CUT the unbounded 4-dimensional reality into bounded 2-dimensional frame you have moved far from reality.

So if we cannot achieve “reality”, then what do I mean by photography “as-it-is”. It is just a notion to explain my another favorite form of photography. In the moment of taking photos ( the click moment ), I do whatever I can in order to take better photos, but I WILL NOT arrange or plan the subjects out there. I do not use studio lighting, models, artificial poses and etc. I simply walk there, try to have minimum disturbance on my surroundings and take my photos. I know that my very presence out there will definitely change my surroundings, however I prefer to keep it to minimum.

unique

I also prefer to take “unique” photographs. What do I mean by “unique”? simply non-repeatable or at least very hard to be repeated. Therefore I do not much like to take “architectural” photos such as taking photos from Eiffel tower. Because I (or anybody else) can theoretically take (almost) the same photos next day, next week or next year. Knowing that my photos are so repeatable kills the fun and sense of adventure. I want to capture some unique non-repeatable moments, not something which is as dead as history.

But let’s say there is a woman with her child walking by the tower. And only then, I take a photo of them hand-in-hand walking by the Eiffel tower. I take this photo and I am sure it is almost unique. Yes, no one can take similar photo again. That woman and child will never walk like that in front of Eiffel tower. Even if some obsessed photographer ask them to do so, they will be aware of being photographed and therefore the whole thing will be different.

So, not much static subjects (unless it is abstract which I love by the way) and more and more dynamic photography, preferably including human-dynamics.