Since the late ’90s, Shirin Neshat has been lauded for photographs, films and videos that explore the lives of Iranian women. Her first video, “Turbulent” (1998), featured a face-off between a male and a female singer in Islamic Iran, while “Women Without Men,” her 2009 feature film, focuses on the problems experienced by four women during the 1953 coup that brought the last shah to power. More recently, her work has addressed other countries in the Arab Spring, as in “Our House Is on Fire” (at Chelsea’s Rauschenberg Project Space, closing March 1), a group of poignant portraits of ordinary men and women in Cairo, survivors of the Egyptian revolution. “I wanted to humanize the people we think of as the other,” Neshat says.
Artist Mona Shomali was born in Los Angeles the same year as the Iranian revolution; in fact, her mother fled Iran only months before her birth in order to escape the building turmoil. As a result, the painter grew up balancing two diverging -- and many times conflicting -- cultures.
It was sometime in late 2008, I was trying to find a list of fellow Iranian attorneys in the US. I had seen the Iranian Yellow Pages they come up with in most regions of the country, but they usually only cover California, and a few other major metropolitan areas, with high Iranian population. "What if you live in Springfield, Missouri, or Pueblo, Colorado, and you are looking for an Iranian lawyer," I asked myself.
I found a couple of websites where they were supposed to have them listed, but they seemed too confusing, boring and user-unfriendly.
So, shortly after that, we got together with a few computer savvy folks, put our heads together, and the result is the website you see. With the whole idea of “paper” going out of business, it is time for Iranians to use the internet as an efficient means of finding each other. “Iranian-lawyers.com” is the first website of this series to be presented on line, and hopefully, it makes an attempt to do what is it designed to do: Connecting Iranians with Iranians.
Scroll through our website: We have lawyers from large firms as well as sole practitioners. Lawyers with general practice from small towns, as well as specialists from big cities.
You may search for a lawyer, based on his/her name, location, or specialty. Once selected, you can view his/her office information, such as street address and phone number and their website; and some even have their pictures up.
In these times where everything in ‘on the web’, we have tried to finally have all the Iranian lawyers working in the USA, all under one roof. A few other sites for other Iranian professionals have also been created (www.iranian-everything.com) and our goal is to complete the series, listing all Iranian professionals and establishments active in the United States, by 2010.
I am delighted to be the editor of this site. Please let us know how we can help you in your pursuits. You can contact me at any time at IranianCameron@gmail.com.
Q. Please introduce yourself.
A. I am Fereydoun” Freddie” Mohseni.
Q. Can you tell us more about yourself?
A. When I was drafted into the Iranian Army in 1986 .It changed the course of my life. Since I was unable to finish my medical education or to pursue my other creative interest, I picked up the camera and never put it down. I was hired by a College in Arizona and started a photography program that I directed for twenty-five years. During all of my time in that position I continued to take photographs and work in the darkroom every week.
Q. When did your love for photography begin?
A. My love for photography began in 1987 in Iran. I regret starting out trying to escape my surroundings by taking photographs of landscape in the rural countryside instead of my fellow Iranians, I would love to have that record.
Q. Emotions are said to be an important aspect of photography. How crucial is this element for you as a photographer?
A. Emotional content is essential to my work, I've sometimes refer to my work as psychological portraiture. I photograph people for years and sometimes decades, in birth as well as death, we both grow older and our relationships evolve or dissolve. These images are in part self portraits not observations from a passive observer.
Q. Does the people/scenery you capture influence you as a photographer?
A. Every inch of the image is part of the portrait and of equal importance, if it is not essential to the goal of the photograph it is not there. In one of my classes I used to give an assignment to describe every square inch of the photograph. After a semester of this exercise they never looked at a photograph in the same way.
Q. Your work “Hospice” is very inspiring, what was your experience like in hooting this?
A. When I began photographing the AIDS patients of York House Hospice I was nervous about photographing people at the end of life. I was fortunate to have an intern from Goucher College at the time named Barbara Wood keep a journal of our visits and help me to process the experience. It was the most powerful and gratifying experiences to share the last moments of each patient's life. We bonded with the staff as well as the Director, Joy Ufema, who each helped create a very beautiful and loving place to die.
Q. What subject/s are your favorite to shoot?
A. Many people have drawn a parallel between photography and literature. My photographs are narrative and I want to take a photograph that has the best story from those I find interesting, have a relationship with or love. I must say my favorite person to photograph is my daughter, Sharareh. We have worked together for twenty-five years from her moment of birth to the mature and talented visual and performing artist she is today.
Q. What message do you want to convey in your photographs?
A. I want people who look at my photographs to be able to make a connection with and find something familiar to the subject.
Q. Any advice for our readers?
A. Make photographs obsessively, and as my colleague used to say: "employ yourself," or treat your artwork like a job and make it a priority make a schedule for work that you won't break.
