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