November 2011, Esfahan, Iran.
It’s an ancient and prosperous city with a population of 3.5 million, and used to be the capital of the country for a few centuries. The city is proud of its contributions to the Iranian society and culture, proud of the exceptional novelists, poets, musicians, and composers who grew up in, and were nurtured by city of Esfahan.
If you begin talking to the ordinary people in the city, one thing that will hit you in the face after a couple of conversations is their piercing and yet amusing sarcasm. They can be totally cruel, even to themselves, but always smiling, always entertaining you with their smart sense of humor. One of them, after I asked for his permission to take his photo, began speculating on “what on earth I wanted to take his picture for”! And his conclusion was:
“You want to put my ugly face on candy jar so that kids won’t even go close to the candy! It’s to scare away kids, isn’t it?”
Telling you what Esfahan is like, or what its people are like, is impossible with a collection of 10 images. So this series simply shows you portraits of different professions in Esfahan, with the hope that you will be able to find out some things about these people just by looking at their faces.
The photographs are accompanied by captions which are actually quotes by the shop owners.
The quotes begin with their answer to the question
How long have you been doing this job?“
The full photo story can be found on Alireza’s website.
Alireza Abbasy was born in 1981, in Tehran, Iran. He is based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
He mostly works with 35mm film.
For more of Alireza’s work please visit his portfolio
☞ www.alirezaabbasy.com
☞ Alireza on Flickr
☞ Alireza on Facebook
