Sheyda Shahi

BA in Photography, University of Tehran

Collector: Amirbahador Bayat

I started this project in the landscape workshop with Mehdi Vosoughnia. This area is considered as an unusual area. During the 17-18 years that I have been living in Karaj, I have never been to this area and was always watching it from distance. ZoorAbad is located on a hill and ends on both sides to the prosperous areas of Karaj, but it is not much well developed both in terms of culture and welfare. I started to photography there and it was my first entrance to this area. It was strange that houses had no specific plan, the alleys were so narrow, and yet, at a very short distance from these houses, there were apartments that were considered among the most expensive houses in Karaj. However, I was kind of scared during photography. They didn’t look at me very well, and they asked me a lot of questions, why are you taking pictures here? They even thought that, for example, I might be from the municipality or TV channels who came to prepare a report. This fear I guess is visible in the images as well, and the idea of ​​not getting too close to the subject was due to this fear.