Life and nothing more

” I took photos there until the sky got dark. The following day, the first day after the earthquake, I photographed Rudbar. A few days later a special issue was printed, which contained also my photos. One year later I met and started working with Abbas Kiarostami due to this special issue. We agreed that he would use my photographic archive in order to find film locations and reconstruct the events of the first few days following the earthquake. But on the first day I went on the film set, we decided that I would also take photos of the film. The collaboration led me to live with the director and the film crew for over two months. This series differs from all the series I have exhibited thus far. Usually when we see any single frame we witness an image in which time has stopped at a particular instant. Here you will not encounter a single fixed 24×36 mm frame, but rather a section of the movement of a film that has been photographed. Time really starts moving, linking together earlier and later scenes. The frames acquire a different meaning when they are linked together, since all the elements of each group form a single photograph. You see the previous and following events, be they few or many.Every frame is a photograph in itself, and every photograph has a story. Our story begins in a distant past and links up to an uncertain future. You are responsible for guessing this future to some extent, and building it. For my part, I have made a guess and placed it in my frame.

I am not a film photographer. “

Jassem Ghazbanpour