Street Scene Reflected in a Mirror, Teheran

Drawn by television reports, Gilles Peress photographed throughout Iran for five weeks, between December 1979 and January 1980. At that time, students were holding U.S. Embassy employees hostage, the shah of Iran had been exiled, and the Ayatollah Khomeini was soon to return. For Peress, photographing in Iran was a means “to understand . . . the apparent madness about which the Western media could only generalize.” In this photograph, the mirrors reflect glimpses of life in Teheran during this tumultuous time. To Peress, who has compared himself to a “distorting prism, ” it is but one view: that of the photographer’s at this history-changing moment.