Wednesday November 5, 2008, Tehran, Iran

Iranian girl looking at obama pictures

Credit: Newsha Tavakolian / Polaris

Thursday December 4, 2008, Mecca, Saudi Arabia

Millions of Muslims perform Haj pilgrimage

More than two million Muslims perform the annual Haj pilgrimage to Mecca. Haj, one of the largest manifestations of religious devotion in the world, retraces the path of Prophet Mohammad 14 centuries ago, and must be performed by every able-bodied adult Muslim who can afford the trip at least once in a lifetime.

A sea of Muslims circle the Ka'baa, which Muslims believe was built by Prophet Abraham and his son Ismael, at the Grand Mosque, Islam's holiest shrine in Mecca

Credit: Newsha Tavakolian / Polaris

Monday June 8, 2009, Tehran, Iran

Iranian rally for candidates ahead of election

Iranians rally ahead of the country's presidential elections on June 12th. Reformist candidate Mir Hussein Moussavi is seen as posing a serious threat to incumbent hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

A female supporter of Ahmadinejad holds an Iranian flag at a rally at Tehran's Grand Mosque

Credit: Newsha Tavakolian / Polaris

Tuesday June 9, 2009, Tehran, Iran

Moussavi supporters in Tehran

Supporters of Mir Hussein Mousavi, the main challenger of incumbent President Ahmadinejad, during an election rally in Heydariyeh stadium

Supporters of Mir Hussein Mousavi

Credit: Newsha Tavakolian / Polaris

Thursday June 5, 2008, Oromeyeh, Iran

Summer holiday in Iran

As tension with the U.S. reach an all time high over it's nuclear program, Iranians still enjoy their summer holiday season. From the white shores of the Persian Gulf island of Kish, to the breakwaters of the Caspian sea, Iranian men and women sunbathe, relax and swim. The women however have to adhere to the Islamic clothing laws which means they hit the beaches not in bikinis but in coats and headscarves.

Iranian tourists at the salt lake near Oromeyeh. Iranians believe the salt in the lake is healthy for the body. Because of Islamic clothing laws women are not allowed to bathe without their chadors (traditional black veil) in the presence of men.

Credit: Newsha Tavakolian / Polaris

Thursday May 10, 2007, Tehran, Iran

Romina (9) and her classmates are dressed in traditional white chadors to symbolize they are Angels. According to Shia Islamic traditions a girl becomes a woman in the ninth year of her life. In Modern day Tehran girl schools organise special events to mark this moment, called the 'Jashne Taklif', which means 'celebration of responsibility'. After this events the ' women' have to start wearing the Islamic headscarf and manteau and start praying daily in the school. For the children at my nieces school the event is symbolic, most of their parents aren't activly religious, but still it's an important event. The children are called ' Angels' and dressed up in similar attire complete with wings. They are women now.

Credit: Newsha Tavakolian / Polaris

Wednesday May 28, 2008, Bihar Provence, India

River of Sorrow

The Kosi river, known as the 'river of sorrow' because it anuualy causes the highest death tolls in Indian floods. The Kosi is regarded as holy in the Nepalese and Indian border regions, but each monsoon the river turns into a destructive force, flooding it's banks, sweeping away villages and killing people. Bihar province, which is cut in half by the river, is India's poorest region. During the dry season people live off the Kosi's fish and worship the river as a mother Goddess, but they also desperately try to build makeshift dams to stop the inevitable flooding. In August 2008, the Kosi river swelled and changed its course leaving more than 1.3 million persons stranded.

Women pass by shops in a village close to the Kosi

Credit: Newsha Tavakolian / Polaris

Sunday December 7, 2008, Mina, Saudi Arabia

Millions of Muslims perform Haj pilgrimage

More than two million Muslims perform the annual Haj pilgrimage to Mecca. Haj, one of the largest manifestations of religious devotion in the world, retraces the path of Prophet Mohammad 14 centuries ago, and must be performed by every able-bodied adult Muslim who can afford the trip at least once in a lifetime.

Muslim pilgrims gather at Mount Arafat. The hill is the place Muslims believe Muhammad delivered the Farewell Sermon to the Muslims who had accompanied him for the Hajj towards the end of his life.

Credit: Newsha Tavakolian / Polaris

Saturday November 10, 2007, Baku, Azerbaijan

Azerbaijan's gold teeth

Portraits of people with gold teeth in Azerbaijan. Many of them get gold teeth because they think it is beautiful but some have stuck to the practice stemming from the Soviet Azerbaijan time when residents would transfer their money in to gold and have it cover their teeth to hide wealth.

Man with gold teeth

Credit: Newsha Tavakolian / Polaris

Monday August 11, 2008

Tehrani girls.

Credit: Newsha Tavakolian / Polaris

Sunday December 7, 2008, Mina, Saudi Arabia

Millions of Muslims perform Haj pilgrimage

More than two million Muslims perform the annual Haj pilgrimage to Mecca. Haj, one of the largest manifestations of religious devotion in the world, retraces the path of Prophet Mohammad 14 centuries ago, and must be performed by every able-bodied adult Muslim who can afford the trip at least once in a lifetime.

Muslim pilgrims gather at Mount Arafat. The hill is the place Muslims believe Muhammad delivered the Farewell Sermon to the Muslims who had accompanied him for the Hajj towards the end of his life.

Credit: Newsha Tavakolian / Polaris

Saturday August 18, 2007, Tehran, Iran

Blind Iranian war vet lives a sighted life

The call of war often rings loudest in a young man's ear. For 16-year-old Javad Jahanian, it was a summons he had to answer. The Islamic revolution in Iran had been victorious, but then the country came under attack from neighboring Iraq. Though his mother protested, Jahanian signed up to fight. Six months later, he stepped on a mine and lost his sight. "At first I didn't mind. I even comforted the boy in the next bed, who had only lost one eye. But my pain was still to come." Back in his hometown of Tabas, he sank into depression. While his friends played football, his beloved sport, Jahanian sat at home. He was a war hero - as all Iranian veterans are known - but a blind one. His disability however, was transformed into a push: he moved to Tehran while his friends stayed home. It was lonely there, but he learned Braille, studied at university and married a cousin from Tabas. The depressed war hero is now a computer-using, volleyball-playing dad. He still watches soccer matches on TV, imagining the moves from the commentary. He plays volleyball by tying a small bell to the ball so he can hear it coming, and football on a pitch which has special tape to show where the lines are. For Jahanian, everything is manageable.

Javad Jahanian praying.

Credit: Newsha Tavakolian / Polaris

Monday August 11, 2008

Portrait of an Iranian girl, mouring the death of ayatollah Khomeini.

Credit: Newsha Tavakolian / Polaris

Sunday June 1, 2008, Tehran, Iran

Student Reza Yadegari

Reza Yadegari student of law was suspended for three terms from Tehran university for political activities, standing outside the university building at Enghelab street.

Credit: Newsha Tavakolian / Polaris

Wednesday May 28, 2008, Bihar Provence, India

River of Sorrow

The Kosi river, known as the 'river of sorrow' because it anuualy causes the highest death tolls in Indian floods. The Kosi is regarded as holy in the Nepalese and Indian border regions, but each monsoon the river turns into a destructive force, flooding it's banks, sweeping away villages and killing people. Bihar province, which is cut in half by the river, is India's poorest region. During the dry season people live off the Kosi's fish and worship the river as a mother Goddess, but they also desperately try to build makeshift dams to stop the inevitable flooding. In August 2008, the Kosi river swelled and changed its course leaving more than 1.3 million persons stranded.

A group of women building a dam near a village close to the Kosi.

Credit: Newsha Tavakolian / Polaris

Friday July 11, 2008, Tehran, Iran

Shirin Ebadi

Iranian Nobel peace laureate Shirin Ebadi in her office in Tehran.

Credit: Newsha Tavakolian / Polaris

Wednesday June 20, 2007

Tehrani boys and girls in an uptown coffeeshop.

Credit: Newsha Tavakolian / Polaris

Sunday April 29, 2007

A bride waiting in a beauty parlor to be picked up by her husband to be.

Credit: Newsha Tavakolian / Polaris

Wednesday March 19, 2008, Tehran, Iran

'Islamic Jesus' hits Iranian movie screens

Iranian film , "Jesus, the Spirit of God," billed as an Islamic answer to Western productions like Mel Gibson's 2004 "The Passion of the Christ," will be made into a 20 episode spin-off to be broadcast over state-run national television this year. In the film, following Koranic versions of events, God saves Jesus from crucifixion and takes him straight to heaven and Judas, the Apostle that betrayed Jesus to the Romans, is crucified. Director Nader Talebzadeh sees the film as a bridge between Christianity and Islam.

Iranian actor, Ahmad Soleimani Nia plays the role of Jesus

Credit: Newsha Tavakolian / Polaris

Saturday February 2, 2008

An Iranian girl in a karate class.

Credit: Newsha Tavakolian / Polaris

Sunday June 15, 2008, Tehran, Iran

Shahla Lahiji, first Iranian female publisher

Ms. Shahla Lahiji, director of Roshangaran Publishing, is the first female head of a publishing house in Iran.

Shahla Lahiji visits the printing house her company works with.

Credit: Newsha Tavakolian / Polaris

Thursday December 4, 2008, Mecca, Saudi Arabia

Millions of Muslims perform Haj pilgrimage

More than two million Muslims perform the annual Haj pilgrimage to Mecca. Haj, one of the largest manifestations of religious devotion in the world, retraces the path of Prophet Mohammad 14 centuries ago, and must be performed by every able-bodied adult Muslim who can afford the trip at least once in a lifetime.

Muslim Pilgrims pray at the birthplace of prophet Mohammed at the Grand Mosque, Islam's holiest shrine in Mecca

Credit: Newsha Tavakolian / Polaris

Saturday November 10, 2007, Baku, Azerbaijan

Azerbaijan's gold teeth

Portraits of people with gold teeth in Azerbaijan. Many of them get gold teeth because they think it is beautiful but some have stuck to the practice stemming from the Soviet Azerbaijan time when residents would transfer their money in to gold and have it cover their teeth to hide wealth.

Woman with gold teeth

Credit: Newsha Tavakolian / Polaris

Wednesday May 28, 2008, Bihar Provence, India

River of Sorrow

The Kosi river, known as the 'river of sorrow' because it anuualy causes the highest death tolls in Indian floods. The Kosi is regarded as holy in the Nepalese and Indian border regions, but each monsoon the river turns into a destructive force, flooding it's banks, sweeping away villages and killing people. Bihar province, which is cut in half by the river, is India's poorest region. During the dry season people live off the Kosi's fish and worship the river as a mother Goddess, but they also desperately try to build makeshift dams to stop the inevitable flooding. In August 2008, the Kosi river swelled and changed its course leaving more than 1.3 million persons stranded.

Indian children carrying bags of wheat towards a market. The river, through it's fertile lands, provided for their food, but every monsoon they have to flee for the floods.

Credit: Newsha Tavakolian / Polaris

Thursday April 17, 2008, Tehran, Iran

Iran shows off military might during 'Army Day' parade

Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, proclaimed his country the "most powerful and independent nation" on earth, at a military parade marking Army Day in the capital of Tehran. The parade of Iran's military might and firepower featured troops, missiles, and fly overs by air force jet fighters and comes as the United States and Israel, the Middle East's sole if undeclared nuclear power, accused Iran of using its civilian nuclear power programme as a cover for attempting to develop an atomic bomb.

Iranian troops march past grandstands during Army Day parade

Credit: Newsha Tavakolian / Polaris

Thursday June 14, 2007, Qandil Mountains, Iraq

The PKK to possibly war with Turkey

Established in the 1970's, the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) is a nationalist party which aims to create a democratic and independent Kurdish state comprised of territories in southeastern Turkey, northeastern Iraq, northeastern Syria and northwestern Iran. The group refers to this area as "Kurdistan."

A 19-year-old Kurdish-Syrian and female PKK fighter in the Qandil Mountains, the party's base camp in northern Iraq.

Credit: Newsha Tavakolian / Polaris

Saturday August 18, 2007, Tehran, Iran

Blind Iranian war vet lives a sighted life

The call of war often rings loudest in a young man's ear. For 16-year-old Javad Jahanian, it was a summons he had to answer. The Islamic revolution in Iran had been victorious, but then the country came under attack from neighboring Iraq. Though his mother protested, Jahanian signed up to fight. Six months later, he stepped on a mine and lost his sight. "At first I didn't mind. I even comforted the boy in the next bed, who had only lost one eye. But my pain was still to come." Back in his hometown of Tabas, he sank into depression. While his friends played football, his beloved sport, Jahanian sat at home. He was a war hero - as all Iranian veterans are known - but a blind one. His disability however, was transformed into a push: he moved to Tehran while his friends stayed home. It was lonely there, but he learned Braille, studied at university and married a cousin from Tabas. The depressed war hero is now a computer-using, volleyball-playing dad. He still watches soccer matches on TV, imagining the moves from the commentary. He plays volleyball by tying a small bell to the ball so he can hear it coming, and football on a pitch which has special tape to show where the lines are. For Jahanian, everything is manageable.

Javad Jahanian is reflected in the glass of a framed boyhood portrait of himself.

Credit: Newsha Tavakolian / Polaris

Friday June 15, 2007, Iraq

Wedding in Ainkawa. These days lot's of Iraqi's come to the Chirstian neighbourhood of Ainkawa near Arbil in North-Iraq to get married.

Credit: Newsha Tavakolian / Polaris

Thursday June 12, 2008, Tehran, Iran

Iranian Youth

Tehrani youths enjoying themselves in cafe's and parks in the 12 million strong capital during a free Thursday afternoon. Summer is kicking in and many youths spend part of their days outside, having fun.

Credit: Newsha Tavakolian / Polaris

Newsha Tavakolian

www.newshatavakolian.com