Mummy dearest

My mother recently came to visit me in Iran, her first visit in 3 years. Making the thoroughly un-original observation that Tehran is both a huge building site and parking lot, she proceeded to take a zillion photos to prove this point. She is a keen photographer anyway, but somehow Iran made her even more snap-happy. Trekking around Tehran, she found even more subject matter- giggling school kids, nuts, street signs, gas pipes, supermarket shelves, cooked beetroot, her lunch... Tiring as it might have been, wandering around the city, waiting for her to get the perfect shot through a gap in the traffic, when we really did need to be somewhere, she did manage to take many good pics. It also provided another moment when I realised how much I had got used to this place, that with fresh eyes I might want to take similar photos, but that a lot of things had now blended into the background for me. With the new year upon us, and my mother no longer acting as my lens, I’ve resolved to take more pictures of my own. But for now, thanks to Khanoum Tiz-Bin for some of these:


Jolly school girls

Nuts etc, from the mirrored ceiling of a Khoshk Bar (dry goods) shop

Terrafik (traffic) and Borjha ( sky-scrapers) from Modarres Highway, North Tehran

Public Art? A sculpture outside Khane-ye Honarmandan (House of Artists)

A friend and I looking at second-hand watches, Jomeh Bazaar

Nose job? (apparently 1/3 women and 1/5 men in Iran have had them)

Young street-sellers, there are a lot of children and women involved in organised street trade, where little of the money gets back to them

An old chevrolet (can be seen cruising down Vali-e Asr)

Tehran as building site
(although economics has led to a slow-down in the besaz o befrush (build and sell) business)