How could the sound of a 35mm camera shutter attract the attention of a protestor in a crowd? It’s as if the photographer used a megaphone to say, “One, Two, Three, Cheese…” and some participants gazed out of the atmosphere to stare at the camera.
This project highlights the revolutionaries of Iran in 1979, who looked out from among the masses at a crucial moment in history and stared into the lens of a camera. The anticipated relationship has been reversed in these photographs, as if the subject and object had exchanged places. This reversal of roles had a significant impact, as the people themselves took on the task of capturing the image with their gaze rather than the camera turning towards them.
Photographing through a loupe provided an allegory for extracting photographs of the revolution and bringing them to the present moment. It seems that their gaze has been waiting for my eyes for decades, filtering through a multitude of lenses and eyes before reaching me. They wanted to be recorded in history by a camera, and I tried to honor their desire for immortality.
