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Ahmad Batebi

After years of work in the world of social and documentary photojournalism, Jamshid ‎Bayrami, the famous Iranian photographer and a prominent name in the world of ‎photography, has created a forum for art photo lovers in Iran by launching a coffee shop ‎called Café Jamshid. On this occasion, Ahmad Batebi who once made it to the cover of ‎the London Economist because of Bayrami’s shots, and then ended up in Evin, spoke ‎with Bayrami about his new creation. In this interview, nothing is said about the bloodied ‎T-shirt. Their talk was professional. Read on.‎

Café Jamshid is in the Aftab shopping mall. Aftab Avenue is near Vanak circle in ‎Tehran, a place where Jamshid Bayrami plays host to professional photographers who ‎work in different fields. This is a place where known Iranian and non-Iranian ‎photographers get away from work to chat.‎

Rooz (R): Tell me how did you become a photographer?‎
Jamshid Bayrami (JB): I was born in 1962 in southern Tehran. I learned photography ‎through practice when I was very young. I got a camera and began to shoot and I ‎experimented with color right from the beginning. In reality, I have never taken black and ‎white photographs. This may have been because I was always very taken by color. It is ‎the same way now. My serious photography began with the revolution and the events ‎associated with it. The photos that I took in those days were the first steps for my ‎entrance into the world of professional photography. The Iran-Iraq war was another ‎important event that further pulled me towards professional photography. The war gave ‎me the opportunity to get into photo journalism and gain experience. Then I developed ‎my own style: A special way of using light, color, form and rhythm.

R: Tell me more about this style.‎
JB: I think its key aspect is that I use wide lenses. I think a wide lens brings me the ‎closest to people. I think a psychological look at a subject is one of the most important ‎aspects whose impact on photography is very clear. My goal is to have a psychological ‎view of my photo subject, a view that is compatible with reality. The next goal is travel. I ‎have made many photo trips. To me, trips are like a mobile university. Seeing different ‎people, tribes, gaining experience, and learning their true nature results in images that ‎reflect real differences between human societies and thus differentiate every photograph ‎from another. The social aspect is similar to this. The social perspective of a ‎photographer is no less important than his psychological perspective. Travel is the best ‎way to strengthen the social perspective of a photographer. Another importance of travel ‎for me lies in the cultural awareness that it provides. Learning about these things has ‎made me become more interested in my country and people. This may in fact be the ‎reason why I still live in Iran. In general, I can say that I have gained all my experience ‎through my trips.‎

R: Many of your photographs have been displayed in competitions, but which do you ‎think are your best photos?‎

JB: One is about the return of prisoners of war. In those days I took a photograph of ‎prisoners returning to Iran, and particularly an old friend and classmate who was a ‎prisoner for many years in Iraq. Another photograph is of the mourning ceremony of ‎martyred soldiers at the Shiroodi stadium in Tehran. These are very sad photographs and ‎I think this is a special sadness that everybody cannot experience. The same is true of a ‎collection of photographs of Afghans relating to the lives of Afghan refugees.‎