A Celebration of the Gaze

The brilliant photographs from Hengameh Golestan’s Wedding series have either remained unseen or rarely viewed. And if today we glance at them, it’s likely thanks to the growing popularity of casual, documentary-style photography in the West — and now in Iran. I believe she is perhaps the only photographer whose images have so effortlessly emerged from the tradition of family photo albums. Many of her photographs have sharp, bold cuts — the edges of the frame either push us out or pull us inward. The camera seems to be everywhere, as if it’s become one of the people in the scene. One of those very close, intimate ones.

This photograph is of today, of yesterday, and of tomorrow. The bride in this picture, looking out to the right side of the frame, seems to have become the photographer’s subject of the present moment. The mother of today — or perhaps the bride of yesterday — also looks outward from the center of the image. Or perhaps she stares, not really seeing. Down in the bottom left, another mother has her head turned toward us, but her gaze is invisible — as if she, too, is staring outside the frame, to the right. And the baby, at the very bottom of the image, is staring at the mother of today. The baby's gaze pulls me toward the mother, into the image. But this time, I see the mother’s gaze differently. I imagine her eyes fixed to the ground, lost in her own thoughts. Now I notice the sangak bread, the lamp, the flowerpot, the herbs, the cheese, the dish of confection — and the scattered ones on the ground — and the tablecloth, half in shadow and half in light. I see the bridal bouquet wrapped in tulle and the small gift boxes resting on it. I see someone’s feet in the left corner, and the chadors of two others tucked under their arms in the middle of the image. And again, the bright lamp at the center.

Now, it’s me staring at the lamp — trying to withdraw a bit from the noise of the people, the gazes, and the objects. To distance myself, and to look at these women’s today, yesterday, and tomorrow— and at the woman photographer who saw those women.