A song from Tehran

When I am bitter or sad, this project doesn’t work. To step in front of strangers with a camera—hoping for a brief, trusting human exchange—requires something real from within. An openness, a warmth, an energy that cannot be faked. You either carry it, or you don’t.
In recent months, with everything happening in Iran and with my family and friends there, I have felt that energy slipping. It has become harder to approach people, harder to believe in those small, fleeting connections that this work depends on.
I sometimes wonder whether I am becoming more distant—more guarded—and whether that is why I’ve been drawn to slower, more solitary architectural photography. A quieter space, where nothing is asked of anyone, and nothing needs to be given in return. Still, I hope I won’t abandon this entirely.
The other day, knowing there was an important Arsenal Women home match near us, I spent some time among the fans. I stayed for quite a while, but didn’t lift my camera once. Sometimes it’s right not to force it—but it made me wonder what had shifted inside me, why that sense of belonging felt out of reach.
Then, outside the Emirates Stadium, I heard a street band playing a song I least expected—an anti-fascist Italian folk song we used to listen to during our protests against the Islamic Republic of Iran, sixteen years ago. Suddenly, goosebumps and with them, the memory of something I hadn’t felt in a long time: a deeper camaraderie, once shared on the streets of Tehran. The contrast between where I stood and what I remembered felt disorienting.
Living in exile is not new to me. But at times, its weight becomes intensely personal—so distant from the world around me that it leaves me strangely disconnected.
For now, I returned to earlier photographs, and this image caught my eye. After all, perhaps the deepest sorrow I carry is still the loss of my father— when I was so far from him— and the quiet, unresolved feeling of missing him in this difficult period of my life— while feeling ashamed to speak of my own struggles alongside what fellow Iranians in Iran are going through now.