Azad Amin
by Azad Amin from Iran
2019 was not a good year for the people of my homeland, Iran. Right from the beginning of the Persian New Year, Nowrouz, at the vernal equinox several days of heavy rainfall gave way to devastating flood in different regions of the country. And this last month of the year that, anticipating Nowrouz again, has always been the busiest and most exciting time of the year is now passing towards the end of this current solar year in a most quiet and most grayish mood; and the reason is nothing but the world’s most repeated denomination in late 2019/early 2020 namely Corona virus alias COVID-19.
Some countries announced the situation at hand the most critical since the end of the Second World War. In my hometown, Teheran, schools and universities are closed since Esfand 2th (February 21th) and people have been asked to stay at home in a form of home quarantine; and my little family has not been exception to the general fact. So there entered we the home quarantine in the name and hope of keeping our selves and others safe from the virus. Remained were then the two of us in this 73 square meter apartment that we ought not to leave for the indefinite duration of time. I began then to register this obligatory and yet voluntary confinement in photographs. The first days were not especially difficult to pass; the people of the large metropolises are always welcoming occasions for resting and relaxation, and the occasion was there for us; what could be more desirable?
The first weeks passed with music, reading, watching movies and cooking. Then came a fundamental care for all the plants and flowers at home and furthermore exercise walking on the rooftop that we rarely had been before, in fact only for the occasions of reparation of the cooler machine stationed there. The rooftop these days has become our airy favorite dwelling place!! Next we began to follow the news by the moment; we sought some suggestions of hope but whatever we saw and read amounted to bad news together with the fear for a dark future: there has not been found a remedy for the final treatment of the disease; the curve of contamination accelerates up ward with a stupefying pace; 50 million jobs are in danger. And these are only a section of our daily share of bombardment by the news.
After the passing of one month now I think how different the meaning of ‘everyday life’ has become. The denomination that usually went to point at our difficult time and less desirable conditions has now become a dream hard to attain; ‘everyday life’ with all the values that we were short of seeing and all the allusive pleasures that we hardly appreciated. Oh, how delightful are all those things that we thought of as little or not much: embracing our loved ones, the companies of friends, the pleasure of eating out and shopping for the occasion of the New Year, and the delight of the New Year’s visits…all are lost to us because of this newly hatched virus.
But what can one do? A Persian saying tells us that “man is alive by hope.” When there is nowhere to go but hoping for a better day and time you do everything to keep the hope alive in your heart; and you comfort yourself with the notion that the safe haven of your own home is the best corner in the whole world to retire to. Even if you have not for a long time seen your loved ones living right in the neighboring residential quarter, even if your income has been cut short, and even if many projects that you dream of attaining must be delayed for an unknown period of time, you have no other way out but staying alive by hoping for the best.
I have registered this period of our recent history through the window of my camera in my little apartment and with my little family as a testimony to keeping the hope alive for appreciating the freshly arriving spring and the ‘return’ of life…and who knows even a new beginning for a new era in the history of humanity.
SELF-PORTRAITS: PHOTOGRAPHERS IN CONFINEMENT
Curated by Svetlana Bachevanova (USA/France)
A collection of self-portraits made by photojournalists from five continents during the unprecedent lockdown due to the corona virus pandemic.
Photographers are people on the road, living to document the lives of others.
Constrained by the lockdown, many of them had their first experience of being still long enough to begin seeing and understanding small details about who they are, their lifestyles and values, that were overshadowed while they were busy. These self-portraits express their experience.
This is a unique collection of self-portraits from some of the best lenses in photojournalism at an historic moment.
Photographers in Confinement is a project in process and I welcome additional submissions from photojournalists at svetlana@fotoevidence.com
I am looking for potential exhibition partners in the USA and abroad.
Svetlana Bachevanova is a founder and publisher of FotoEvidence, long time photojournalist and curator.
