It all started when…
In June of 2024 an anonymous hacker leaked scans of over 3,000 photographs from the digital archives of Golestan Palace, the historic residence of the Qajar Royal Dynasty. The first photograph taken in Iran was of its monarch Mohammad Shah Qajar and his son and heir, Naser al-Din Shah by Jules Richard, a Frenchman working as an exotic tutor to the children of aristocrats in Tehran. Upon his succession to the throne Naser al-Din Shah Qajar was gifted a camera by Italian emissaries and declared Aqa Reza Iqbal al-Saltana as the country’s first official court photographer.
My full last name is Jahanshahi-Ghajar, Naser al-Din Shah Qajar is my 6th great-grandfather, a lineage through one of the minor wives in his harem. When my father immigrated to the United States in the midst of the Iranian Revolution he removed the hyphenated -Qajar from his last name in his immigration paperwork, to be “less confusing” he had explained to me in my youth. In my mind these photographs belong to me through inheritance, but the faces and buildings are foreign to me. More importantly they belong to all Iranians, so that in knowing our past we may build the best possible future.
-2025