The air at the Indian Photo Festival (IPF) buzzed with anticipation — not just for the exhibitions and talks, but for the arrival of an Iranian photojournalist and documentary photographer, whose work has stirred hearts across continents. When Newsha Tavakolian stepped onto the stage as a key speaker, she brought with her decades of imagery shaped by courage, metaphor, and a fierce commitment to truth. Newsha invited her viewers to pause — to sit with silence, with emotion, with the unspoken. From chronicling everyday life in Iran as a teenage news photographer to creating deeply reflective bodies of work that explore women’s inner worlds, she has spent decades reshaping how stories of resilience, identity, and quiet defiance are seen.
She began photographing professionally as a teenager in Iran, immersed in the intensity of everyday events. “When I started, I was taking care of what was happening around me — documenting everyday life, the news, everything happening in Iran in those days,” she recalls in an exclusive chat with CE. Over the years, that instinctive documentary impulse transformed into something more inward, thoughtful, and deliberate. “Now I create what I want to say. I’m more thoughtful and slower. I don’t jump when there’s news just to take a picture. I’m a creative person, and I want to be creative even when dealing with social issues. I like giving space to viewers to imagine and dream. When everything is put in front of the audience, there’s nothing left to search for,” she shares.
Growing up in Iran, where metaphor underpins literature, cinema, and expression — deeply informed her artistic voice. Newsha expresses, “In Iran, we grow up with poetry. One of the essential things in our way of poetry, cinema, and writing is metaphor. When you live in a country where you cannot say whatever you want, you find a way to do so — like many artists in Iran throughout history.” She cites the Shahnameh and its author Ferdowsi, who encoded truths within narrative centuries ago, as part of this heritage of resistance through metaphor.
Her work often turns toward the interior lives of women — particularly those who live quietly, without the privilege of visibility. Yet Newsha is clear that she does not aim to speak on their behalf. “I’m not a representative of Iranian women. My world is different, I’ve had opportunities to travel, and I can enter their world and picture their struggles to make their realities familiar for others. I just go with the flow. I don’t push my own ideas on things. Maybe I choose a moment when they are like that — not all the time. I want to bring across a feeling that’s difficult to explain with a single image,” Newsha says.
Silence — both literal and emotional — is central to her process. “Silence allows me to think and reflect deeply. When you see things slowly, you pay more attention to details. For viewers, silence allows them to look carefully,” she explains.
As a woman photographer in Iran, she has witnessed — and helped shape — a dramatic shift in representation. “When I started 25 or 26 years ago, there were maybe four women photographers in Iran. Now there are more women than men. Many important stories coming out of Iran today are created by women — that says enough about where we are,” Newsha narrates.
She is also part of the storied Magnum Photos collective, though she approaches the legacy with grounded clarity. Newsha states, “We all have our own journey. I admire the older generation a lot, and I take their wisdom with me. But Magnum was never a burden. I see myself as part of a collective nurturing something ongoing.”
She arrived at the Indian Photo Festival 2025 with eagerness for exchange — both artistic and personal. “I want the audience to deeply understand why I do my work. Then I have a two-day workshop, and through workshops I exchange many ideas with photographers,” she notes.
For her, festivals like IPF serve a deeper purpose. “These platforms are amazing occasions for people to get closer to each other. And that’s what we need in the world we are living in now — to understand each other closely,” Newsha concludes.