Kaveh Golestan

Author: Ramyar Manouchehrzadeh

It does not matter how much Kaveh Golestan had influenced Iranian photography and its current situation. His name, however, has always been and is associated with Iranian photography.
His death was an end to three decades of relentless effort! Unlike other photographers, his career started from exhibitions and manipulated polaroid photographs and gradually became popular with his documentary photographs at a young age. His series of photographs titled as “Prostitute, Worker, Asylum” is an important part and the mainstream of the next generations that still and after four decades is studied in universities and academic contexts. The revolution and war led his direction to photojournalism and established his position as an excellent photojournalist.
Lately, he became a BBC cameraman that marked the end of his life in Iraq, Kurdistan. His death was an end to a relatively short, but energetic life that left a legacy for Iranian photography. I can still hear Kaveh Golestan’s passion, excitement and love for education and motivating the new generation through his words. There was a cycle of cooperation between us from winter 2002 that I interviewed him (and no one thought it would be the last conversation of his life) till 2003, the second of April; a connection or unique situation between a young student and a well-experienced photographer; a path to transfer an experience, a common sense, or a transitional position between two generations.