Babak Kanaani

@babak.kanaani (English Text)

Babak Kanaani was born in Tehran-capital of Iran at 1987. He have graduated in civil engineering at 2014 with master degree.

He started photography at 2005. Since that year, he have collaborated with several domestic magazines to take portraits photos of various people and cover photo, which so far continues.

He have just begun to collaborate with foreign publications and magazines, meantime he published a photo essay named "Iran’s election leaves a paper trial" at JUNE 2017 at Latterly magazine's website which subject of recent Iran's presidential election. He attendance several group internal and foreign exhibitions: “Tehran

by Smartphone” – Paris / France – September 2017 and “Close Narrative” – Tabriz / Iran – October 2017

How did you get started in photography?

In 2005, with one of my friends' recommendation, I started photography with my father’s camera, a Canon AE-1. At that time, under specific circumstances, I couldn’t pursue my deep interest in cinema and that made me to do photography even more serious and focus on it as a profession. At the beginning, my photos had various subjects and topics but eventually I found myself being more interested in portrait photography.

What does photography mean to you?

To me, photography is a way to interact with the environment, in a delicate and artistic way. It makes me look at the world around me more precisely and for me that makes the process of taking a photo full of joy and satisfaction. The joy of capturing the moment and makes it immortal is what moves me to take a photo, making the moment to last forever. Each photo has a story to tell and that story is what makes it special and keeps the photographer’s idea and view within the photograph alive forever. I believe photos have their own unique ways of defining perpetuity and that’s what makes photography mesmerising to me; an endless way to eternity.

Tell us how streets affected your photography and the way you see things Street photography for me is a method to tell a story. It amplified my ability to capture every detail that surrounds me in a moment. Details that I've never paid attention to before and I think this is the most effective impact of the street photography on me, and my interaction to things around me.

Are u a professional photographer?

Based on general definition, photography like all other professions can be the source of income for many professional photographers, however I’d rather not to look at it as a way of making money, because I do it by heart and because it’s my passion and not to make money out of it, although sometimes it covers a small portion of my living expenses. Who knows, maybe someday, in near future I’ll make enough money though photography that I can only focus on it and make living out of it!

@babak.kanaani @efsyn_newspaper