Self-Portrait in War

By paying attention to the details of this picture, we realize it depicts victims of the Iran-Iraq war. It is a horizontal, unbalanced, and unstable image captured with a wide-angle lens, which not only shows the vastness of the space but also presents everything with complete and tight clarity before the viewer’s eyes. The photographer, by showing a part of his own backlit, exposed body and through his framing and perspective, encourages us to search—to seek the situation he and his companions are experiencing. The temporary residents of this room, without the basic necessities of life, only want to find calm beneath the ceiling fan. Moving our gaze from the foreground to the background, we pass empty walls devoid of signs of life and finally arrive at a small, humble television—the everyday device for entertainment that now shows a solitary figure. The people present pay no attention to the TV; someone lies indifferently in front of it, asleep. Within the confined triangle formed by the photographer’s legs, we see two young men engaged in conversation, one of whom is simultaneously watching the photographer. We do not know what the photographer is pointing to in this strange black-and-white photograph. The picture is in a way both a humorous self-portrait and perhaps a portrayal of a weary, protesting documentary photographer who experiences war firsthand—a bitter, chaotic experience of what used to be a normal, everyday life. The dreary yet isolated atmosphere of this photograph reveals another narrative of living under harsh human conditions.