Oscar Yoosefinejad

Seeking Asylum: A life in limbo

At the ago of 21, whilst walking through the streets of Tehran, Iran, my cousin, Merhnaz, was told by a complete stranger to un-tuck her trousers from her boots. When she refused the man pulled her into his doorway and broke her arm for looking too western.

This sort of confrontation is not uncommon in Iran, and by this point Merhnaz had begun to consider her options. She could either stay, whereby, she would be likely to run into similar trouble again, or she could begin the process of leaving the country for good. Originally she had planned on going to Canada, but after some thought decided it was too far away from home and that she hardly knew anyone there. After this, Germany was the next best choice. With her best friend also having opted for this route, and family in England that could visit frequently, it seemed like a more practical solution.

As the years passed a plan began to formulate, she was to go to Germany and apply to study graphics at a university in Berlin. In order to apply for a student visa however, she had to be fluent in German and be under the age of 25. By this time she was 24 and only had a year left to learn to speak the language.

One year on she arrived in Germany able to speak the language proficiently enough to apply to university. Unfortunately, after an interview, Merhnaz and her friend were declined a place at the university. Regardless of this she knew she didn’t want to return to Iran so began the long process of applying for asylum. The German government had split up Merhnaz and her friend and moved her to Bremen for a short period of time before finally housing her in a home for people seeking asylum. This home is situated in a small town called Kamenz, located about half an hour outside of Dresden. Having spent a year there now, this is her story.

Kamenz is situated in the former eastern block of Germany, and although the building Merhnaz has been housed in looks like it is from the former soviet era, it was in fact, built a year ago. The building itself is more like a hostel, mainly housing people and families originally from the Middle East who are now seeking asylum. Some of the residences here have been waiting for asylum for up to 8 years.

In order to enter the building we have to hand in our passports at reception, and I hide my camera as not to grab any unwanted attention. Unfortunately this didn’t fool them upon my final return, and they took it away from me on my third and final day, and told me I could pick it up on my way out.

Merhnaz has decided to stop her pursuit of making a career out of graphics and decided to follow a more secure route of becoming a nurse, whilst attending school in Dresden learning advanced German. She has applied for several nursing apprenticeships in hospitals within the area, and whilst the hospital in Dresden wants to take her on, the hospital in Kamenz has declined her. Despite her best efforts to persuade the government to let her move to Dresden, which would make her life much easier, they keep declining her requests.

In the late 70’s, a young Iranian man at the age of 16 had decided to follow his friend to the UK to study after having pleaded with his parents to let him do so. Originally the plan was to return to Iran once he had completed his education and at the very latest he would stay to study at university. From here he began to take the relevant steps to become an engineer. However, the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq war forced him to stay and his parents told him not to return. The war had already taken advantage of most of the men in his family through a new compulsory national service system. The young man’s cousin was posted to the front line, as was his uncle who was killed by grenade shrapnel. Time went by and now the man’s younger brother had also been sent to the frontline. As fortune would have it, the younger brother was re-assigned to logistics because of his neat handwriting. But as the war progressed Iranian propaganda began to have an effect on young Iranian nationals abroad. They began to return back to the country in anger because of failed UN resolutions and a lack of aid. Most of these men joined the army, some became martyrs. These martyrs were blind folded and told to run for the enemy lines. They were used to clear Iraqi minefields. Before the young man’s uncle was killed, he sent photographs from the frontlines in order to warn and prevent the young man from making a similar decision. Determined now, the young man continued his education and eventually graduated from university with a Phd in polymers.

This man is now a nano-scientist, and also my father.

Due to varying political tensions from the Bush era my family in Iran haven’t been able to visit, I haven’t seen them since I was 10. A few years back, my cousin was pulled into a doorway in Tehran by a complete stranger; he demanded that she un-tuck her trousers from her boots and when she refused he broke her arm for looking too western. Since then she has learnt German and is seeking asylum in Germany. About this time last year my Grandma died suddenly. While my father has brought my family up in an environment far from the dangers of Iran, I feel as though this part of my family is rushing past unseen and unnoticed by me. These events have acted as a catalyst for me to go back and unearth my roots in order to document a similar struggle to that of my dad but also my extended Iranian family. Watch this space. (Images above: my grandad one week after my grandmother died (image taken by my uncle on his phone). Images below that: photographs my father’s uncle sent him from the frontline. The man in the center of each shot is my father’s cousin.)

This is the ground floor flat in south east London that belongs to Cherry. Having grown up in the flat two floors above her, I spent much of my childhood here being child minded until I moved away at the age of 9. As each new family moved in and out of the building a new generation of children and parents would go through a similar routine. Now Cherry is 84 and has issues with her knee, meaning she can’t move around very well and has to have someone look after her regularly, and buy her groceries. Other than for church on a Sunday she doesn’t leave the flat. This photo story was shot as part of a 24 hour project entitled The City Never Sleeps. For a city that never sleeps, I feel a lot gets overlooked. Within this series are photographs that I feel depict an iconic part of my childhood upbringing. Unfortunately I was unable to get a formal portrait of Cherry at the time.

A couple of months before Christmas, while reading a regional newspaper, I stumbled upon an article about a recently set up woman’s gun group based in the Bodmin area. Once a month they get together for a few hours with an instructor to  help hone their skills.The women come from all sorts of different backgrounds with different levels of experience with shooting. Some of which had only just started out. I was lucky enough to join them one foggy morning to photograph them.

onpointproject:

INSIGHT 2013:

 

After hearing on twitter Tuesday afternoon that the 2^nd year editorial and photojournalism students from Falmouth were holding an exhibition in London I felt it was a bit of a given that had to be seen. Held at Calumet photographic in Euston there was a room with a vast range of work from the students. With a  good mixture of Photojournalism and editorial style photography there was plenty to see even though it was only a small room. An impressive amount of narratives and story behind the photographs and also some impressive visual styles the students possessed made me think to what there 3^rd year show was going to be like.

 

It was great to see such a dense and rich showcase of this approach to photography from a vast number of photographers is hard to come by. I had in my mind to choose a particular few that stood out a little bit more so to me that some others they included Holly Hayward, Arthur Hauges, Alex Lambert, Tom Pullen, Jordan Stephens, and Shannon Kelly. After visiting their blogs and portfolio sites I am eager to do a feature on the blog of all of their work. I knew Falmouth has produced some great photographers in the past however they are producing some really strong work and even though they may be in their corner of the country these graduates will be ones to keep an eye on!

Review of my 2nd year show at Calumet in London

littlebrownmushroom:

Support the publication of Carolyn Drake’s excellent project, Two Rivers, on Kickstarter: http://kck.st/ZOQD4g

reportagebygettyimages:

Can you imagine A Day Without News?

One year ago, legendary correspondent Marie Colvin and photojournalist Remi Ochlik were killed in Homs, Syria. Evidence from eye witnesses suggests that the journalists were targeted by the Syrian regime in an attempt to limit exposure of the war’s atrocities. Their deaths struck an industry still reeling from a string of tragic losses, including the deaths of photojournalists Chris Hondros and Tim Hetherington in Misrata, Libya, in April 2011.

Watch the U.N. Secretary General’s message of support

“It is unacceptable that those looking to report objectively from conflict zones around the world are deliberately singled out, targeted and murdered with impunity, with those responsible for their deaths not facing any repercussions. Without these journalists bearing witness, atrocities committed in war would go unremarked and it is an equal cruelty that their deaths go without justice. This is a situation that has to change. We are heading towards a day when it will be too dangerous for journalists to enter into or report from war zones.” - Aidan Sullivan, Vice President, Photo Assignments, Editorial Partnerships and Development for Getty Images and founder of A Day Without News?

A Day Without News?, launching today, will raise awareness of the risks faced by journalists and photojournalists in war zones, and lobby governments and tribunals to pursue and prosecute those who harm members of the news media. Many media professionals find themselves deliberately targeted when attempting to cover conflicts, and, while it is considered a war crime to do so, there has been little to no enforcement of this international humanitarianlaw.  Over the past decade, 945 photojournalists and correspondents have been killed while covering conflict zones, 583 of these without any resulting prosecutions as war crimes. Ninety journalists were killed in 2012 alone, the deadliest year on record.

Please visit A Day Without News? to learn more and to add your name in support.

(via tompullenphoto)

This is my second attempt at a landscape project, perhaps the most successful out of the two. This one concentrates on “a place that defines a space”. In this case I went to a few small airfields around the south west of England and photographed these barren landscapes, with the focus being on the seemingly, random, oddly placed structures dotted around them. In each shot I tried to make sure that they came across as barren and fragile, whilst at the same time generating a strong sense of formality. Different lines and shapes produced within these images was something I thought an important value.

The academic year started a little while back now and I’ve barely gone on three shoots to cover one brief, let alone the other two I’ve been assigned. As a part of this brief I was tasked with finding a landscape to photograph. Simple enough. However, I usually like to set myself a bit of a challenge, hence why I haven’t posted anything in a little while. It was pointed out to me when racking my mind for an idea that Cornwall has a serious issue with fly tipping. I figured this could be interesting if I shot locations around Cornwall in a traditional landscape style, only littered with peoples fridges and other unwanted kitchen appliances. I began to build up in my mind what sort of photographs I would begin to produce, and I began to get really interested in what I might find. I wasn’t sure where to start looking for any fly tipping sites so a made some phone calls. First there was the local policeman, he gave me some rough areas around Stithians and Ponsenooth to have a look at but no where really specific. Then I phoned up Falmouth Council, they told me to get in touch with Cornwall County council. Cornwall county council told me to get in touch with their refuse department. The refuse department then told me they had emailed a company that they contract to clean up any illegally dumped waste. They never got back to me, so I did what my lecturer told me to do and went on a ride around the area in my friends car looking for small back roads and country lanes where people might have left anything. We found nothing. I didn’t want to waste the journey so we drove to the local recycling depot and they gave me a name of someone who worked in the Cornish county council to ring up. He got back to me a week later telling me that he couldn’t help me, and that most waste that is dumped illegally usually happens on private land and that it is up to the land owner to clean up the rubbish. Suffice to say after a few weeks of this I was beginning to clutch at straws and so I took to the back lanes again after a tip off from a friend about a small area behind the Uni campus he had photographed briefly the year before. My hopes were up as I began to approach what I thought could be a potential project. To my dismay, what I had in fact stumbled upon was a cottaging site, and the only rubbish I could find were empty baggies, used johnnys and ass wipe scattered amongst a few knotted shopping bags filled with empty cans of beer. I managed to find a stack of old tyres around the corner used by a farmer to help keeps bales of hay under sheets of plastic during the winter, trying my best to convince myself that someone had illegally put them there. In any case I bought a digital camera and a digital infra red camera with me just in case. I’d never really used infra red photography before and thought I would experiment with it. Neither of them really worked out but I liked the contrast of the infra red images. Suffice to say I will be dropping this project for now.

I haven’t really done much photography as of yet this term. So here is a portrait I really like that one of my friends took for a series of portraits on people that fly remote control air craft.

(via robertherron)