What Kiarostami Taught Me About Photography and Life
- G NAZHAD
- Sep 25, 2025
- 2 min read
Kiarostami wasn’t just a photographer. He was a poet with a camera, a traveler with sharp eyes, and a man who turned light into truth. His photos danced between humour and heaviness, optimism and critique, beauty and brutality.
Here’s what his work whispers to me every time I pick up a camera:
1. Keep it simple
Photography doesn’t have to be complicated. Kiarostami reminded us: load your camera, walk, shoot, come home, choose your photos, and share them. That’s it. Don’t overthink. Don’t get stuck in the technical weeds. The camera is just a tool, the point is to see.
2. Write or draw with light
Kiarostami said photography is both writing and drawing with light. Writing with light means you have something to say a story, an idea, a truth. Drawing with light is pure expression, lines and tones without words.Which one are you doing when you shoot? Maybe both.
3. Get good shoes. Fall in love.
Kiarostami’s advice was beautifully practical: buy strong shoes, and fall in love. You can’t photograph the world if you’re not walking through it. And you can’t see beauty if you don’t love what you see.
4. Transcend the world
He believed black and white transcends reality. Colour shows the world as it is. Black and white turns it into something else, something timeless, symbolic, stripped to the bone.
5. Make your own stories
Kiarostami never settled for “objectivity.” Even as a Magnum photojournalist, he insisted: photography is art, not just reporting. Don’t just show what happened show how you see it. Tell the story of your truth.
6. Trust your gut
“My photography is a reflection, which comes to life in action and leads to meditation,” he said. That’s Kiarostami. Act first, reflect later. Spontaneity is your sharpest tool, the suspended moment that happens only once.
7. Photograph belief, not just ritual
Kiarostami was fascinated by what people do in the name of God, the beauty, the absurdity, the violence, the devotion. His lesson: don’t just photograph surfaces. Photograph the forces that move people, the invisible engines of culture and faith.
Why Kiarostami matters
His photography wasn’t neutral. It was alive funny, sharp, transcendent, political, poetic. He saw photography not as evidence but as an act of interpretation.
Take Kiarostami’s Lessons Into the Streets
Photography is about curiosity, spontaneity, and discovering the world on your own terms. If you want to learn how to shoot like Kiarostami with simplicity, intuition, and joy, my workshops are designed for exactly that. Walk the streets. See the moments. Capture them freely. Learn to trust your instincts and make photographs that truly belong to you.
Kiarostami reminds me: Don’t just take photos. Make meaning.
Walk lightly, see deeply,
Nazhad
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