will_Yong's blog ^pro

A while since i was active on ipernity. no reason for alarm, busy at work and such things that have taken my mind off photography and instead pushed me into politics - through my job as a news anchor for Press TV. Some links to video of my on-screen work can be found in my facebook page.

But today i really needed a break so I took a walk in Tajrish. Bustling commerce and leisure shoppers abounded in the warm afternoon. Thick clouds brewing over the mountains came to only light spits of rain but a sign that autumn is on its way.

After a bite to eat at the jigari (griled liver on skewers) I took a step forward in photographing people in the street.

The shoe-shiner on the steps next to Mellat Bank knocked me back at first but I literally stood my ground, camera in hand and the fortuitous arrival of a customer. A young guy who wanted the soles of his football boot mended managed to get a smile out of the chap. At first he said only one but I showed him that I had underexposed. That was my cue and I sat down next to him and started chatting.

Later, on the fringes of the bazaar I caught the young guys in front of the vanity belts and promised them a quick print from the developers up the road which I handed to them 10 minutes later.

Some great pictures taken in the mud-wall alleys and bazaar district of Yazd

yazdnegar.blogfa.com/post-466.aspx

 

Alice Russell - Hurry on Now f…

 

A dust storm has hit the city and I can hardly see past milad tower.

the dust storm

There are electricity pylons in the mountains just above us. Is it true they cause cancer? And what about the microwaves from the big satellite dishes on the roof at work? Did they put the newsroom at the bottom of the building to make it bomb proof? I’m not sure if all this technology and politics can really be trusted.

This morning there was a fracas in the street below my window. They’re opening up a dead end road which backs onto the mountains. The Basijis have buried some unknown soldiers up there and they want to make it a shrine to the politico-religious establishment.

The neighbours were complaining their peace would be broken by all the rough-stubbled plebeian men and black-clad women folk on Fridays, driving their noisy Paykans up the hill to cry in the name of the martyrs.

In Tehran, the right to clean air is something you only get with premium real estate. Central Tehran was a dust bowl today. The wind kicking it into your hair and eyes.

While one of the neighbours went irretrievably hysterical, a man revealed the undercurrent to the discussion:

Why not? Let the bottom-of-the-city people come up here and enjoy the air up here sometimes. You talk like you own it…

They did pay for their piece of the mountain. but I guess it didn’t come with a guarantee.

 

the pen's orient

If there is a trend towards homogenization there is also a trend towards bringing out the essential native aesthetic through means developed in other cultures.

Typography has gone hand in hand with the technological developments that enabled it, required it and shaped it.

So are cultural latecomers now adapting to this new world? Adapting it’s tools and techniques to its own needs? Adapting or reinterpreting it – recreating it?

 

Typography as part of the Dialogue of Civilisations requested by Mohammad Khatami when he was Iran’s president.

The meta-dialogue of techniques of visual communication, a dialogue of written scripts and illustration.

at the Imam Ali Religious Art Museum Japanese calligraphy was placed alongside Iranian. noted calligraphers from both countries had been invited, they walked us through the tea ceremony step by step and dressed a woman up in clothes no one has worn in more than a thousand years.

I really didn’t notice any real dialogue between the two traditions apart from in the exhibition promotional material. Two styles cohabiting a single space but remaining tactfully distinct. While the embassy functionaries and invited artists shared the sensor space of dozens of digital cameras, the two distinguished artistic traditions eyed each other silently, respectfully, across an ocean.

Arabesque

it’s good to know that graphic artists in Europe have seen the positive side of the rise of Islam. Is Arabesque a great achievement in spite of the current tensions between Europe and the West? Or is it itself a product of it? positivity abounds in posters for Iftar parties in the Netherlands, Arabic inspired calligraphy-in-light from a French graphiste and graffiti in early-Kufic.

 

 

Tehran Spring.

It’s good to be outside again.

 

 

urban blooms

 

 

 

 

 

 

 if they're so tough why do they have to be in our faces so much?

 

 

 

edifice

 

stood politely side by side.

 

tacit acknowledgement of the gulf between the two.

 

a poem by Dr. Seuss

… read more