Iranian photographer Farzin Nazemzadeh won a gold medal at the Arctic Exhibition of Photographic Art 2016, held in Oslo, Norway.
Architect and photographer Nazemzadeh, 53, was awarded the gold medal by the 6th edition of Norwegian photo contest, conducted by the Photographic Society of America (PSA) in coordination with the International Federation of Photographic Art (FIAP).
The photograph that brought him the gold is titled 'Snowy Morning'. "I'm very fond of the photo. Last year, Tehran saw snow only once, and it was early in the morning. The snow started at 5am, but melted away in a few hours," Nazemzadeh told Mehr News Agency.
"I took a simple picture of the snowy scene. It was from a high angle, showing an unoccupied bench and an empty car nearby. A street cleaner in green attire is walking across the scene. To my eye, he represented spring and life."
For the photographer himself, the picture exudes a sense of loneliness. "Three symbols of solitude are juxtaposed in the photograph … I'm very concerned about pictorial representations in a photo. There's an interaction between elements of a picture that makes up a narrative. Personally, I enjoy telling stories in my photos."
Nazemzadeh's photos have received other recognitions in recent months by the FIAP. His photo titled 'Effort' has won him a diploma of honor at Salon Photo de Riedisheim 2016, held in Alsace, northeastern France. Another of his photos, 'Fishermen of Anzali' was praised at Bristol Photobook Festival 2016, an event conducted under the supervision of Royal Photographic Society and FIAP.
Both his photos, Effort and Fishermen of Anzali, are from a huge collection of photographs titled 'The Story of Red Ropes.' Two years ago in winter, Nazemzadeh took 500 photos from the fishermen who were working in the port of Anzali, in Iran's Caspian Sea province of Gilan.
"The subject of my photos was the fishermen and their laborious tasks. With my pictures, I wanted to show what it feels like to be a fisherman; I didn't want to give details about the process of fishing."
