Abbas's Photographs of Iran A member of the world-renowned Magnum Photos collective, Abbas (who uses only his first name
professionally) was born in Iran and spent his childhood in Algeria. As a young man he witnessed the outbreak of the Algerian War of Independence, an experience he credits with inspiring him to become a documentary photographer.
After studying mass communications in England, he eventually moved to Paris, where he still lives today. By the early 1970s, Abbas had become an experienced photojournalist, documenting conflicts in Bangladesh, Northern Ireland,
and South Vietnam. In the late 1970s, he returned to Iran with the idea of producing a photo-essay examining the social and economic changes brought on by the country's rapidly expanding oil industry.
Between Word and Image
includes selections from the photographs Abbas took in preparation for this project. In 1977, for example, he photographed women exchanging greetings in a Tehran hairdressing salon. By 1978, however, the Iranian Revolution was well underway, and Abbas turned his attention to documenting what was happening in Tehran's streets. In an interview with Shiva Balaghi, Abbas explained, "The revolution started with small streams and suddenly the small streams came together and it became like a huge river. I went to the streets of Tehran and started photographing."
Abbas's photographs were published in leading magazines. They provided information on the day-to-day unfolding of the revolution to Iranians shuttered in their homes and to those living abroad. Religious holidays,
such as Ashura, which commemorates the anniversary of the martyrdom of Imam Hossein, provided occasions for massive street demonstrations. Abbas describes how he shot Young Woman at an Anti-Shah Demonstration
on one such occasion: "There were millions of people in the street for the first time, and they were all happy to be together… I saw this woman, standing alone behind a row of men, and I thought her position said something about the role of women in this revolution. In a way, in this picture, I anticipated what would become of women after the revolution." Revealing subtle changes and nuances, his photographs provide a pictorial history of the Revolution.
As we look at Abbas's photographs, we begin to see the transition of the Iranian Revolution from a popular uprising against the Shah's regime to an increasingly Islamic movement. In a 1978 photograph, a group of seemingly
unlinked men stoke a bonfire in which a photograph of the Shah burns. Another shows a sea of veiled women, arms raised to the sky as they await Khomeini's return. By the fall of 1979, the marchers wear army fatigues and carry
weapons as they stage a demonstration outside the As Balaghi argues, Abbas's photographs serve as a historical archive of the Revolution. In a sense, they have
become the memory of the event. "Some of these pictures have become icons of the revolution," Abbas explained, "People don't remember the event; they remember the photograph of the event. Your own memory tends to fade, but the
picture is still alive, it's still there, you can still go back to it. The picture becomes the event itself." Abbas left Iran in 1980 and published the photographs he took in the book,
La Révolution Confisquée. In 1981 he was elected a member of Magnum Photos, the prestigious photojournalists' collective founded in 1947 by Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capa, and other war correspondents; he served as
Mangum's President from 1998 to 2001. Inspired by his experience as a participant/observer in the Iranian Revolution, he undertook a major project to document political Islam. The results were published in 1984 in the book
Allah O Akbar. In 1997, Abbas began returning to Iran on a regular basis, recording life in the Islamic Republic. He recently published Iran Diary, which presents his photographs taken between 1971 and 2000.
U. S. Embassy where American diplomats have been taken hostage.