Study of literary adaptation in Iranian staged photography

Texts have always been influenced by preceding works. Sometimes this influence is investigated in the form of adaptation. When a text obviously refers to another text, if the relationship between them is beyond a mere copying, it can be said that the second work has been adapted from the first one. One can observe variuos forms of adaptation in the history of art, and this has been manifested more clearly in the medium of cinema. It seems that because of its realistic nature, photography hardly surrenders to this technique but studies show that, from the very beginning, photography has also made adaptions from various source, including literary texts. But do literary works have the capacity of photographic recreation? And, if so, what characteristics must they have to be recreated? Which category of literary works has capacity of photographic representation? Which style of photography can more easily represent literary texts? Can adaptation from literary texts create lasting images in photography, attract the addressees' attention, or even make a photographer successful? Regarding this issue, in the present research which is a descriptive-analytic one, the works of five photographers were investigated. These photographers' images, all have been recorded in the way of staged photography and all of them used one literary text as their inspiration source. Research method was desk-based (books, theses, articles   and internet sites). The results of the recent study indicated that adaptation from literary sources is possible in photography; but it is observed more in staged photography. And among literary texts, photographers have adapted more from poetry than prose, because there are more creative possibilities in adaptation from poetry. The analysis of photos based on literary sources suggested that literary texts must have the capacity of setting (a specific place that can set the story in its stream.), characterizing (a character who can play the story) and narrating (storytelling) so that they can be represented with photography. But the important point regarding such kind of collections is that observing photographs, a common viewer cannot get a perception of adapted sources; and as long as the photographer does not conduct the viewer through exhibition statements or literary texts used in the photography itself or in its title, he or she is not able to trace them in the photographs. All the analyzed works except one had artist statement. Even the series with no statement conducted the viewer with the poems related to each photograph. Of course, none of the photographers whose names are mentioned and whose works are analyzed claimed recreation or imagery of literary works which they were influenced by, but mainly applied their own mental inner perception at the time of photography. Evidences are indicative of the fact that it is not possible to recreate a literary text in photography identically; but it is able to attract the viewer and make impact on him or her.