I am a woman and I live in Iran. I am a photographer and this is the only thing I know how to do. I began work after completing my studies. Quite by accident, the subjects of my first two series were ‘women’. However, every time I think about a new series, in a way it still relates to women.

Perhaps the only idea outsiders have of Iranian women is a black chador. I try to portray all our aspects. And this completely depends on my own situation. When I did this series of photographs, I had just graduated. The duality of life at that time provided the motive: one cannot say to what time the woman belongs; a photograph from two eras; a woman who is dazed; a woman who is not connected to the objects in her possession.

After marriage it was natural that vacuum cleaners and pots and pans found their way into my photographs; a woman with a different look; a woman who, no matter in what part of the world she is living, still has these kinds of apprehensions. At this moment a woman is consigned to a daily repetitive routine. For this reason I named the series Like Every Day.

Now I know what I wish to say with my photographs. Many of them have shown women as second-class citizens or the censorship of women. I wish to continue speaking about women because I still have a lot to say. These are my words as a woman and the words of all the other women who live in Iran, where being a woman imposes its own unique system. The photographs are not authentic documentation. I take them in my studio, but they deal with current social issues all the same.

Shadi Ghadirian, Iran
By arrangement with
Drik Picture Library Ltd,
www.drik.net

Call for entries
Southern Exposure photo entries

Format: preferably portrait.
Colour: black and white or full colour
Caption: a maximum of 150 words describing both the content of the image and how the photographer came to take it.
Enquiries and submissions: preferably by email to exposure@newint.org or by post to:

New Internationalist
(Southern Exposure)
55 Rectory Road,
Oxford OX4 1BW, UK