Walton, S; (2016) Photographic Truth in Motion: The Case of Iranian Photoblogs. Anthropology and Photography (4)

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Abstract

In Persian, the phrase ‘aks andākhtan, ‘to take photographs’, literally translates as ‘to throw one’s reflection’. The etymology of the word ‘aks, meaning reflection (in water and mirrors), originates from the sixteenth century, in which it described the miniatures and illustrations by the artist Mawlana Kepek (Afshar 1992:267–8). In Qajar Iran (1785–1925), following the creation of the first daguerreotype in 1842, photography was considered both an art and a science by the Iranian royal court. Revered for its reflective capacities, photography played an important role in the documentation of the country, while in a visual culture that had long enjoyed a tradition of illustrative and figurative art, it also signalled the onset of a new visual realism in painting (Diba 2013). Since the nineteenth century, then, photography has been celebrated in Iran for its technological and artistic potentials, both of which playing prominent roles in Iran’s wider realization of ‘modernity’.

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