Title: TELEX IRAN: in the Name of Revolution
Photographer(s): Gilles Peress
Writer(s): Gholam-Hossein Sa'edi, Claude Nori
Designer(s): Gilles Peress, Claude Nori
Publisher(s): Aperture, NewYork, U.S.A.
Year: 1984
Print run:
Language(s): English
Pages: 104
Size: 27 X 38 cm
Binding: Hardcover
Edition: Contrejour, Paris,French 1984 - Scalo, Zurich, Swiss 1987 - Scalo, Zurich, Swiss 1997
Print:
Nation(s) and year(s) of Protest: Iran 1979 - 1980
ISBN: 9780893811181
The book was shot over a five-week period from December 1979 to January 1980, during the Iran 'hostage crisis,' when Islamic fundamentalists, encouraged by the fledgling revolutionary government of the Ayatollah Khomeini, seized the United States Embassy in Tehran and held 52 Americans hostage, in protest at American refusal to return the ousted Shah for trial and certain execution. Peress traveled around Iran, trying to understand both the basis for the revolution and the mindset of a people who were demonized in the US media. His pictures portray not only his attempt to comprehend what was going on, but also the attempts of many of the Iranians he was photographing .
In particular the pictures of the man with a stick in the mouth was thought to be of a hostage, instead it was taken at a television program on military training. Taking a hostage.
Peress does not add traditional, explanatory captions, but instead includes excerpts from the telexes exchanged between himself and the Magnum offices in Paris and New York. These communications, which today would be cellphone text messages or e-mails, give cryptic insights into Peress's understanding of how the story was developing, as well as the practical difficulties facing any photojournalist in a confused and volatile political situation"