Via Payvand
Kaveh Golestan Annual Photojournalism Award announced. The actual site isn't quite complete, but I am intrigued that the Iranian community would so openly celebrate photography. The surprise is in that photography is deemed as an act that objectifies the human body and thus runs contrary to the tenets of the Quran. Contrary thoughts on this welcome.
Seshu is an Avon, Connecticut based headshot photographer and family portrait photographer. He edits and publishes Tiffinbox and produces Tiffincast for photographers like you!
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Saheli says
I always thought the issue was that illustrative art put man in the place of Creator. Photography, on the other hand, “merely” documents that which the Creator has already made.
Saheli says
I always thought the issue was that illustrative art put man in the place of Creator. Photography, on the other hand, “merely” documents that which the Creator has already made.
Seshu says
Well put. But I doubt the mullahs in Iran (or the Taliban in Afghanistan) would have agreed with your interpretation. Photography, to them, is still creating an image, and it objectifies the human body (something that is terribly taboo).
But this feeling about not being photographed is NOT universal in all Islamic communities. The folks in Senegal, I was once told, could care less about being photographed.
One of my first attempts at a photo essay was at a mosque in Bloomington, Indiana. Look at the work here. I remember the women from Saudi Arabia didn’t want to have anything to do with my project. The only activity of theirs I could photograph was of them teaching the Quran. The fact that a man was making a request to photograph them may have made them even more squeamish.
Seshu says
Well put. But I doubt the mullahs in Iran (or the Taliban in Afghanistan) would have agreed with your interpretation. Photography, to them, is still creating an image, and it objectifies the human body (something that is terribly taboo).
But this feeling about not being photographed is NOT universal in all Islamic communities. The folks in Senegal, I was once told, could care less about being photographed.
One of my first attempts at a photo essay was at a mosque in Bloomington, Indiana. Look at the work here. I remember the women from Saudi Arabia didn’t want to have anything to do with my project. The only activity of theirs I could photograph was of them teaching the Quran. The fact that a man was making a request to photograph them may have made them even more squeamish.