Photo Essay: Newsha Tavakolian’s portrait of Iran
In a new book, And They Laughed at Me, the celebrated photographer takes a contemplative approach to a complex and turbulent nation
Unlike many photographers, Newsha Tavakolian is comfortable with showing what she refers to as her “eyesore” images. Her latest book, And They Laughed at Me, features contact sheets, out-of-focus photographs and overexposed shots.
For Tehran-based Tavakolian, such an approach celebrates “the in-between moments, the uncertainty, the repetition”. It was a conscious decision as she “didn’t want to show only the ‘good’ images”.
The photographs, made in two separate periods (1995-2001 and 2017-19), take the viewer from Tavakolian’s beginnings as a 16-year-old photojournalist to her more recent portrait work. They also trace how a generation of Iranians have navigated their lives.
Loss is a constant thread running through the book. Tavakolian, who is a member of Magnum Photos, began the project after the death of her father in 2019. “I needed a way to sit with that grief, and photography is the language I know best,” she says. Yet the images do not dwell in sadness. Those moments sit alongside scenes of everyday life, celebration and joy. For Tavakolian, her choice of selecting what to include came from “staying close to what I saw and lived”.
The role of women within the country is another recurring theme. The Woman, Life, Freedom movement of 2022, sparked by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in police custody, had a profound impact on Tavakolian.
Instead of responding with new photographs, she turned back to her archive. For Tavakolian, “the presence of women in this book is not only about a specific moment”. Instead, it is something that “has been building for many years — a kind of awakening that was already there, even if it wasn’t always visible”.
One image in which that awakening is visible is accompanied by a handwritten caption: “This is the first time I saw other girls climbing a fence to join a student protest (1998)”. Tavakolian moves between moments with ease, from protests to engagement parties, farewells with friends leaving Iran and the first women’s sports championships in Isfahan.
Asked whether she feels a responsibility to document events in Iran today, she suggests a different approach: a need “to step back, to reflect” rather than respond immediately. What matters, she says, is “being honest and taking the time to understand what I am looking at”.
And They Laughed at Me is published by Kehrer Verlag and will be available in the UK from May 2026, with a book signing by Newsha Tavakolian at Photo London on 14 May.
