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Writing History with Light
A tribute to the Iranian photographer Abbas Attar who used his camera to show events and people embedded with multiple meanings. Apart from other historic events, he chronicled the Iranian Revolution in all its complex colours.
The Iranian photographer Abbas Attar, better known by his professional name Abbas, died in Paris on 25 April at the age of 74. Abbas became a living legend among photographers through his exposure of the Iranian Revolution from 1978 to 1980 and his work on religion.
He was born in the Iranian village of Khash, but the family moved to Algeria in the 1950s when he was eight years old. His father was a pioneer of the Baha’i faith, establishing the first permanent community of the religion in Algeria, then a French colony. It was soon to gain independence after a bloody war against its former overlord. “History was unfolding in front of my eyes,” Abbas later remembered, “for a boy who sees history at his doorstep it was natural that he becomes interested.” He said that he decided to become a photographer when he was 11 years old. As a young adult, Abbas initially both photographed and wrote the accompanying journalistic reports, first as a sports editor. But it was photographing the issues of conflict and religion that would remain the recurring focus of his professional life.
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