I am Alireza Heydari
My father’s grandfather, my grandfather and my father were all photographers and photography was a family profession for me. During my childhood, around 6-7 years old, I used to go to my father’s place of work, which was a photography laboratory (Banovaqbal Photography – the first Iranian house photographer that was managed by a lady, and it was something strange at that time, of course, the first period Pahlavi) Mrs. Iqbal’s photography studio was and is located at Sarcheshme intersection in Tehran. I also learned more professional experiences in the same photography studio and got acquainted with the process of photography and photo printing in the traditional way as well as electric (a term for that time), which was also with me. My childhood games, photosensitive papers that were burned, negative cassettes that were used to recycle or make switchboards, the smell of black and white printed medicine in a darkroom that was actually a kitchen, a middle-aged woman. In the name of Kokeb Khanam, a corridor enclosed by two wooden doors and the location of the electric color development machine, the smell of bleach and color negative developer (emergence and proof drug), retouch box and many other things, were more fun than seriousness. The joy of being with the regret that I have these days.
Clearly an image with today’s quality, I have the images of that moment in my mind when I received my report card of the first grade of primary school, the grade 20 was listed in it. It was the day I got the report card at my grandfather’s house. Parents had gone to school to get report cards. When they gave me the report card, there was a small black camera next to the report card, I just looked at the report card and then the happy look and smiling face of my loving parents. I liked my camera more than my portfolio. Father opened the camera from its cardboard cover and I stood in front of our wooden closet at his command to take a picture of me. Dad hit the shutter and I was waiting for the flash to flash, but I felt my face get wet. Yes, it was true, I owned a camera, but of the toy and sprinkler type. I can honestly say that the only toy I still miss was and still is the sprinkler camera, and I’ve never found one. My childhood, along with playing and having fun and studying, was accompanied by numerous film magazines, photography and cinema books, cameras and a big National flash, all of which were for my father and I, in my privacy, away from his father’s eyes, partially I knew about my toys. I went to my father’s shop at the same time as I got the report card of the fifth grade of primary school. I remember that day all the children of the song group were gathered at school and they were supposed to play football, but I had to go.
A year later, after the end of the first grade of middle school, the distance between the house and the shop reached a distance, I was always in my father’s shop. Photography, this family job, was attractive to me, but at the same time, it was a big obstacle for me to achieve my dream of becoming a footballer, playing with my school and local friends, and even having fun with my peers at that time, but I thank God a thousand times that That’s how I was brought up and spent, as unloving as it was then, it’s endearing now.
I was fighting with lessons and homework and school, and my father, and my hobbies, when digital photography suddenly entered our shop and life with my father’s decision. Digital camera, computer, printer, scanner, etc. Somehow it changed all my hopes and dreams and I entered another world, something like Alice who steps into the wonderland uninvited and unintroduced. Of course, all these modern appliances were the same as old televisions for me, as some fathers of our generation tell me. Magical, fascinating, but forbidden. I used to do this magic in the middle of the night when everyone was asleep, and these secret trips to sit at the monitor screen were like a romantic date with my lover, which had an indescribable excitement. By the grace of God, these prohibitions were gradually lifted and I was allowed to work more freely with the computer and even install games. Working with computers and graphic and editing software made me able to teach Photoshop to my father’s photographer friends and sometimes clients of the shop since I was 18 years old, but at that time I had no thoughts about being a teacher and becoming a teacher. I would not
The time came when I had to choose a field of study and I was taking steps in a new way. I had a great interest in giving up photography, my future job, I dreamed of becoming a radio and television editor, that was the dream of that era. I went to Payam Mazazer Academy, the only academy in the whole country that had a cinema department, and we paid a lot of attention to the fact that we study cinema. It was during the first months of studying at the art school that, thanks to my professors and my own studies, I realized that being an audio and television editor is not attractive and charming, I have to think of something else. I became a cinematographer, I wrote a script, I became a lighting and sound engineer, and finally, with all the opposition of my family and school administrator and principal, I made one of my scripts and drowned in the dream of directing and making films, like all 28 of my other classmates. Each of us was supposed to take over a corner of Iranian cinema and become the owner of the style and what dreams we did not have for ourselves and our friends.
It was during these days that thanks to one of my dear teachers, Dr. Mir Alireza Daryabigi, and together with him we went to the poetry theater, the main hall of the city theater, if I want to be honest, to make the theater film “View of the Bridge” directed by Mrs. Manijeh Mahamadi. The atmosphere of the hall enveloped me and created another world for me. Overnight my dream changed and I fell in love with the theater. Despite all the opposition, after finishing the conservatory, I went to the direction of theater and after 14 semesters, which were full of interesting and good and sometimes unattainable events, I graduated in the field of theater directing.
During my university studies, I became very interested in psychology and personality, I can say that I was one of those people who found something to read whenever, wherever, and did not spare it and preferred reading to anything else. I read about everything and had independent studies. Knowing the Internet and the virtual world, which in those days became Yahoo Messenger and search in Yahoo and later Google, I did not abandon my books, but if I came across something stupid, I would seek help from Yahoo and Google. I remember I had a Nokia SIM card notebook and I was constantly immersed in it. Sometimes it was confusing for others, because I didn’t have time to spend with them, but all this reading was fascinating for me until I got to know the children of the management course. At first, this familiarity led to secret and sometimes guest appearances in management classes, and finally it made me read about management. The great spark of the readings of this course was listening to the audio files of Dr. Mohammad Reza Shaban Ali on the website of Radio Negus. which these days has been added to the website.
Studying and continuing it stopped for me due to the change in the mood of my life, but the study was always and continuous. In 2016, following my personal interest and the need that I considered necessary to advance my own economic plans, I studied the MBA course freely without consultation and advice. After completing the course, I started teaching the branches of this course that I was more interested in, advertising management and content production along with photography, video production and advertising consulting.
But these days I have something else on my mind. With the experience that I have gained intuitively since my childhood and then in a practical way during my adolescence and youth, together with my dear friend engineer Pejman Rostami, we started to establish Studio No. Seventeen. Studio No. Seventeen is the first standard analog photography studio based on international standards in Iran, which performs all analog photography in a completely traditional and manual way. For more information about the services and facilities of Studio Number Seventeen, visit the website www.sn17.ir
Life is passing, no matter the failures and shortcomings, we should think about the victories and gain them, we live once and we must be our best selves.
