Two Workshops about History of Photography

Rooyesh cultural Society’s Presents: Workshop about History of Photography

January 19, 2009

This week we looked at historic photographs gathered and shown by Karoon Club, Mr. Mosoud Soheili (our guest speaker).

We listened to the history of photography, from the ancient time up to now. We learned that Nasser-al Din Shah 1848–1896 was the first amateur photograph in our home country. As a king, Nasser-al-Din Shah fell in love with this little mysterious black box that took picture of places. Germans had the latest technique and Iran could bring in this marvelous box that would show us today how people lived at that time. Nasser-al-Din Shah ordered some “photo men” or “akasbashi” to travel to various parts of Iran to take pictures of people, places, and buildings. First photography schools in Tehran and Rasht were then established by this Shah.

This workshop was an opportunity for our Society and our participants to view pictures that took us back to a time of history we had not known before (at least for me). Because of time constrains we decided for a second workshop to learn more about this topic

For more information about this club check their website: http://karoon.com or http://masoudsoheili.com

February 27, 2009

Rooyesh Cultural Society had the chance for a second workshop about the history of photography in our home country.

Mr Mosoud Soheili was our guest speaker and we learned a whole deal from him. This workshop was a time to see how one man in power: Nasser-al-Din shah figured out to use photography to value sport, architecture, and culture. There are about 7000 photographs left from this time which are the important documentations about how roads, buildings, bridges, streets, and the everyday life of people at that time looked like. Only in 1927 or 1306 in our Iranian year, photography was requested for the legal documents such as identity cards and school documents. Media started to use photography or pictures in their published work at that time. Soon photography became a type of “atelier work”, where people would go and have their photos taken. In mid 1950’s Iran had its first photography club that was started in Abadan. Interestingly this club had about 20 female photographs and around the same number of male photographs. What happened to that club after 1979 is then another story; however this trend and interests for photography helped the educational system to have the art of photography in an academic level. It is known that 55 villages around the country were found by photographers who traveled to distance places to take pictures. Mr Hadi Shafaie is known as the father of Iranian photography. He lives in Iran and has been part of the hard work for keeping the Iranian history alive through the art of photography.

After a snapshot in the history and watching the many memory awakening pictures we brainstormed around the topic.

Many participants shared their sincere feelings about seeing the past compare to now. Some others found these pictures as historic evidences that our next generations would need to see. A few others mentioned the notion of change that is truly part of our human life, however seeing history in those photographs told us a lot about change.

Finally we thanked everyone for attending and sharing their views about these photographs.

We thank our guest speaker and the Rooyesh Cultural Society for to these two invaluable workshops.

Poran Poregbal

February 28, 2009

Our Iranian Identity Through Shahnameh / Ferdowsi‏

Rooyesh Cultural Society had an evening with Mrs Flore Talebi (writer and researcher), who took us to the world of Ferdowsi and Shahnameh (The Epic of Kings) from the 10th century.

She discussed our identity based on the values and beliefs that Shanameh describe for us. The interesting point was how Ferdowsi invites us to value knowledge, logic, and nature as real true requirements for a dignified human life.

We had the chance of going to a past where kindness, peace, happiness, generosity, bravery, and congruency with nature was encouraged though thousands of poems written for us. We learned that language is the source for a culture that has to be kept alive. Being kind to self and others is what Shahnameh is about, as it reminds us how only a “good name” remains forever and nothing else.
Join us for our next meetings and learn with us. Every other Friday from 6.30-8.30.
Happy valentine Day everyone!
Poran Poregbal
2009-02-13

North Shore News Acknowledgment

Rooyesh Cultural Society appreciates the report in the North Shore News, Green section in the issue of February 13, 2009. The report acknowledged our two days seminar about environment and our responsibility to keep it clean. We thank North Shore news for letting our community know what is going on.

Please see: http://www2.canada.com/northshorenews/section.html?section=Green

Poran Poregbal
2009-02-13

Networking for Our Environment

On February 18, 2009, three of us from Rooyesh participated in an event hosted by “Cool North Shore” Climate Change Cafe'. We learned how to narrow our ideas down to the everyday changes in our habits to help our environment.

After discussing several topics about how our fears and concerns may make us hopeful to actually get to action ,we managed to plan for a low carbon community. In particular our group from Rooyesh we decided to:

turn of the lights more often
check our use of warm water
talk to our community
walk more and drive less
check with our cooking habits

We will talk more about our learning in our next meeting at Rooyesh February 27, 2009. Join us.

Two Days Seminar: Our Clean Environment

Rooyesh Cultural Society had a successful two days seminar about: Our Responsibility for a Clean Environment”

This was a cooperation between Rooyesh Cultural Society along with Daneshmand, and Parvaz T.V and with support from David Suzuki Foundation and “Cool North Shore” Climate Chance Café.

In summary:

Jan 30 and 31 of 2009, we had two days seminar talking about the ways in which we could learn more about a green environment. The initiative was due to our cultural belief in nature and our love for nature. As a grass root community group we realize that we have to raise awareness in our community, may this be helpful to the benefit of our greater world community.



On Jan 30, 09: Mr Emady, editor from Daneshmand Magazine spoke about the history of earth and the ways in which we human race have polluted and keep polluting our environment. Our hour’s seminar became interactive after break and we had many questions about how we can help. We emphasized that we have to care on the individual, community, and group based. We can start learning how to save more energy and consume less. We can network and talk with our friends and try to educate others. We can get involved by understanding how our grandchildren could benefit from a green environment. We also watched interview with people in our community that Parvaz T.V. had done. The interview showed us the many things other people were doing what it comes to our green environment.



On Jan 31, 09: We had representative from “Cool North Shore” Climate Change Cafe. David Thomson spoke for us about their group and how they started to develop ideas by networking. As a North Shore resident David came together with a group of people who were all interested to know how to help their planet and their community here in North Shore. As result they formed the “Cool North Shore” group to raise awareness about planet changes and on a local basis our responsibilities to help our environment survive. Listening to David we learned that there are many individuals and groups out there who are caring about their environment. After listening to David we were more convinced that we have to do more to help our green life much greener. We talked about attending this group meeting in Feb 18, 09.



Our next guest speaker was from David Suzuki Foundation: Akua Schatz who is responsible for mobilizing Canadians to green their lives through a variety of campaigns and outreach projects, notably David Suzuki’s Nature Challenge. Prior to joining DSF, Akua managed the public engagement programs for an international development organization working in 14 countries. In 2008 she was trained by Al Gore to deliver presentations on climate change and since then she has been enthusiastically speaking to community groups throughout the Lower Mainland. Akua speaks English, French and Spanish and is passionate about sharing and learning how to live more sustainable


Listening to Akua Schatz was thought provoking on a simple way. She inspired us to start from what we love to do. We realized that each one of us has many interests and we can impact others by being mindful about our environment.

In our last half an hour we managed to list the number of daily changes we can do in order to save more energy and help our environment. Finally we said that we have to keep talking about the concerns and challenges in order to find our strength in doing the best work for a healthy and green environment. We also decided to let others know and talk more, the more we talk, the greener we can be. Join us!



Poran Poregbal

January 31, 2009