TEHRAN- A specialized session titled "War Photography and Social Documentary" will be held in Tehran with the participation of renowned international photographer and award-winning artist Alfred Yaghobzadeh. 

Yaghobzadeh, who currently resides in France and is in Iran to attend the Fajr International Film Festival, will conduct the workshop on Saturday at 4 PM at the Cinema Museum’s Cinematography Hall.

During the event, Yaghobzadeh will explore key topics including war photography, social documentary photography, visual storytelling, and analysis of his notable works. He will also share his field and artistic experiences in the realms of war and social documentary photography with attendees.

The session will conclude with a Q&A segment. The event is open to the public, and interested individuals are encouraged to contact the Iranian Youth Cinema Society (IYCS)’s Education and Research Department for further information.

Back in November, Yaghobzadeh conducted a workshop titled “War Photography Through the Lens of Alfred Yaghobzadeh” as part of the 43rd Fajr International Film Festival (FIFF).

Yaghobzadeh is an Iranian-Armenian photographer residing in France. His early work includes documenting the Iran-Iraq War, collaborating with agencies such as Associated Press, Gamma, Sigma Photo Agency, SIPA Press, and serving as a dedicated photographer for Newsweek from 1983 to 1985 in Lebanon. 

Yaghobzadeh has captured historic moments from internal crises across Somalia, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Cuba, India, Turkey, Russia, Iraq, China, Chechnya, Sri Lanka, the United States, and more. He has been wounded multiple times in war zones.

Born in 1958 in Tehran, Yaghobzadeh has an Armenian father and an Assyrian mother. With the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979, he abandoned his academic pursuits and began working as a photographer. 

His early assignments included photographing the 1979 takeover of the U.S. embassy known as “The Den of Espionage”. When Iran and Iraq went to war, he spent three years on the front lines, participating in Mostafa Chamran’s irregular warfare group, photographing for domestic and international media.

Later, he spent three months in India, photographing the Non-Aligned Movement summit, then moved to France. Then Gamma News Agency sent him to Lebanon to document the Lebanese Civil War. In 1985, he was taken hostage in Lebanon for 55 days. Afterward, he traveled to Pakistan, and in 1987, he went to Palestine to cover the First Intifada. In 1988, he documented the Afghan war up to the fall of the Taliban and was also present during the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Subsequently, he traveled to Czechoslovakia to photograph the Velvet Revolution.

In March 2006, Yaghobzadeh was taken hostage along with two foreign journalists during Israeli forces’ attack on the Erez Prison in Gaza but was released shortly after. He published these images in a book titled “Christianity in the World” and held exhibitions in Milan, Budapest, Perpignan, and several other European cities. In late 2005, he also photographed the attack on the Danish Embassy in protest of the publication of the Prophet Muhammad cartoons. His subsequent work included coverage of the 2009 elections and the protests afterward.

In 2010, Yaghobzadeh traveled to Egypt to photograph the Egyptian revolution against Hosni Mubarak. In 2015, he documented the ongoing civil wars in Syria and Iraq, including ISIS attacks, and focused particularly on the Yazidi people in Sinjar, Iraq—women captured and enslaved by ISIS, subjected to violence and humiliation. He also photographed ISIS prisoners held by Kurdish forces. His early works in Iran, titled “Iran-Iraq War” and “Faces of War,” comprise collections of photographs from 1980 and 1981. 

These works highlight the heroic, sacrificial, and tragic aspects of war, capturing moments of heroism, sacrifice, death, destruction, displacement, and separation from both sides of the conflict. His images from the resistance of the Palestinian people have been published under the series “Prophet of Peace.”

Yaghobzadeh’s photographs are characterized by their vivid depiction of war and conflict, emphasizing both the human tragedy and resilience amidst chaos.

SAB/