{"id":9393,"date":"2018-05-01T14:15:19","date_gmt":"2018-05-01T12:15:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/?p=9393"},"modified":"2018-05-01T18:34:20","modified_gmt":"2018-05-01T16:34:20","slug":"abbas-attar-who-photographed-irans-revolution-dies-at-74","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/2018\/05\/abbas-attar-who-photographed-irans-revolution-dies-at-74\/","title":{"rendered":"Abbas Attar, Who Photographed Iran\u2019s Revolution, Dies at 74"},"content":{"rendered":"
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New York Times<\/a><\/p>\n

NEIL GENZLINGER<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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\u00a0The Iranian photographer Abbas. His book \u201cAllah O Akbar: A Journey Through Militant Islam\u201d (1994), recounted his travels through 29 Muslim countries.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n
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Abbas Attar, an Iranian-born photographer who documented cataclysmic events throughout the world, including the Iranian revolution, and developed a particular interest in the role of religion in them, died on Wednesday in Paris. He was 74.<\/p>\n

His agency, Magnum Photos, announced his death. It did not give a cause.<\/p>\n

Abbas, as he referred to himself professionally, was known for dramatic black-and-white photographs delivered with a point of view, especially in his book\u00a0\u201cIran Diary 1971-2002\u201d (2002),\u00a0<\/a>a collection of images and text presented as a sort of journal. When the events that resulted in the overthrow of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi in 1979 began, Abbas supported change, but he soon became disillusioned with Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who took over the government.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the revolution started, it was democratic,\u201d The Toronto Star quoted him as saying in 2013. \u201cIt was my country, my people and my revolution. Then, slowly, it was being hijacked.\u201d<\/p>\n

A turning point, he said, was the execution of four generals after a secret trial. He photographed their corpses in a morgue.<\/p>\n

\u201cSomething that we learned,\u201d he said, \u201cis that the extremists always win. That was my main lesson from the revolution. The extremists were prepared to kill, imprison, torture \u2014 everything. So they won.\u201d<\/p>\n

Abbas was born in 1944 in a part of Iran near the Pakistan border. (Little biographical information about him was available.) When he was a boy his family relocated to Algeria; he said that growing up during that country\u2019s war of independence sparked his interest in documenting political events.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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He taught himself to use a camera, and among his earliest jobs was working for the International Olympic Committee at the 1968 Summer Games in Mexico. He would return to Mexico in the mid-1980s, taking pictures throughout the country over three years and producing the 1992 book \u201cReturn to Mexico: Journeys Beyond the Mask.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the 1970s he worked for the French agencies Sipa and Gamma. Early in that decade he was in Africa, covering the aftermath of the Biafran war in Nigeria and other events. He then found himself back in Iran.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy family is from Iran,\u201d\u00a0he told Vice\u00a0<\/a>in 2015, \u201cbut it isn\u2019t as if I felt particularly Iranian back then. But I did feel that things had to change \u2014 you can\u2019t just have some shah making all the important decisions for an entire country.\u201d<\/p>\n

Slide Show<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n
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SLIDE SHOW<\/span>|<\/span>9 Photos<\/span><\/h5>\n

Abbas: A Lens on the World\/ CreditAll photographs by Abbas\/Magnum Photos<\/h4>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

As the situation became more unstable and it became clear to him that the revolutionaries were no better than the regime they were replacing, he faced pressures from friends.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey urged me not to show the revolution\u2019s negative side to the world,\u201d he said. \u201cThe violence was supposed to come from the shah, not the protesters. I told them that it was my revolution as well, but I still needed to honor my duty as a journalist \u2014 or a historian, if you will.\u201d<\/p>\n

He left the country in 1980 and did not return for 17 years. The revolution, though, had instilled in him an interest in what people throughout the world were doing in the name of God.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was obvious after two years that the wave of Islamism was not going to stop at the borders of Iran,\u201d\u00a0he said in a video interview<\/a>\u00a0with The British Journal of Photography in 2009. \u201cIt was going much beyond the borders.\u201d<\/p>\n