TEHRAN – Naji Honar, Iran’s Police institution that produces and supports films and series, has recently completed a documentary that sheds light on the history of crime scene photography in the country.

Directed and produced by Jamshid Raufi, the documentary entitled “Crime Scene Photography” was broadcast from the Mostanad Channel, an IRIB channel dedicated to screening documentary films. 

“The ups and downs of the field have been studied from the Qajar period [1789–1925] to the present time,” Raufi said in a press release published by IRIB.

“The advent of photography occurred in Iran during the Qajar period, and a few years after its inception, it was fairly common for the Taminat Office, Iran’s criminal investigation department at that time, to take photos of criminals and prisoners,” he added.

The Iranian prisons didn’t have any photography equipment, Raufi noted, and added that criminals and prisoners were taken to a photographic studio set up on Tehran’s Lalezar Street by the Armenian-Georgian photographer Antoin Sevruguin.

Raufi, who spent four years researching his project, lamented the lack of sources for this subject and a reluctance on the part of the police and courts to contribute to his efforts.

However, Naji Honar consented to collaborate with him after reading a copy of the screenplay. 

With contributions from Naji Honar, Raufi called on dozens of veteran photographers and experts on crime scene photography to appear in his documentary and share their useful information about the subjects.

The film also features a number of photojournalists talking about how good crime scene photographs can help newspapers and magazines increase the number of their readers.   

The idea to make a documentary about crime scene photography popped into Rauf’s mind in the 2000s, but he failed to reach an agreement with Naji Honar on the project.

“I am really interested in working on historical topics that have been ignored in the documentary films, so I began new studies on crime scene photography to broaden the information I had about the subject, which has been presented in the documentary,” Rauf said. 

Had the COVID-19 pandemic not brought the project to a halt in 2020, “Crime Scene Photography” would have been completed earlier. 

Photo: A poster for the documentary “Crime Scene Photography” directed by Jamshid Raufi.

MMS/YAW