Analytical History of Urban Landscape Photography of Rasht During First Pahlavi

Photography, as a powerful communication medium, has always shown us a real and tangible world of cultural richness. Every tribe and nation has its own culture with its own special beliefs and different customs. Just as every historical object carries a message, photos, like a visual language, narrate the untold stories of history that encompass the historical legacy of a nation. This article deals with the investigation of the historical context of the city of Rasht, the first Pahlavi period. The current research, which is of historical-analytical type, and the materials and photos have been collected from organizational archives, institutions such as libraries, and also private archives. The findings show how with the beginning of Reza Shah’s reign, we witness a change in the outward process of people’s lives, especially the change in educational and cultural institutions due to the change in the political and economic system. Urbanization has faced many changes in the first Pahlavi period. Due to having suitable and sufficient infrastructure, people’s receptiveness from a cultural aspect caused new changes to take place quickly in this city. Along with these developments, we are witnessing progress in the process of the city and urban development. With the help of these developments, photography also expanded and the number of photography studios of that period increased. Access to the camera became much easier than in the past, and better light-sensitive raw materials entered the market, and cameras gradually became smaller and portable, the sensitivity of films became much higher, and people took photographs more easily than in the past. With the boom of photography and the same progress in its tools and equipment, we are witnessing an increase in photos of ordinary people and people of streets and markets. The findings related to the city of Rasht show that the presence of people in the city is visible in all the photos of the urban landscape and the photographer is not afraid to record people in his images, and this is a proof of the technical progress in cameras that, unlike in the past, the photographer, to take photos of the buildings, Due to the movement of people and the low sensitivity of the films, which caused shaking in the photo, they were not required to leave the photo scene alone. In the political changes, which was led by the ousting of Mirza Kochak Khan Jangali and the destruction of the cemetery of Sheikh Abu Jaafar, it laid the groundwork for the subsequent changes in this city, which according to the images found, a large percentage of cultural changes such as the construction of cinemas, theaters, hotels and The construction of numerous schools can be clearly seen in the pictures of this period. Since the growing city of Rasht was the origin of changes and transformations related to the events of that period, without a doubt photography had a relation with these developments. During this period, unlike the Qajar kings who only pretended to show their glory in photographs, Reza Shah tried to show the settlement activities, progress and development in urban development as the king of the country and used the photographs not for his personal purposes, but for it is used for political purposes. Among these images, we can mention the opening of railway lines, the construction of bridges, mansions, etc., all of which are being visited or inaugurated. Among the famous photographers of Rasht city in the first Pahlavi period are M. Markarian, Monsieur Soren, Isa Shafaq Gilani, Naghi Motamedi Hamdani, Hossein Mesri, Hassan Ahmadian Moghadam, Shahrabano Noushari, Mohammad Ibrahim Elmipour, Musiqar Photography Studio, Nik Photography Studio, Raphael Photography Studio, Markazi Photography Studio. Looking at the archive of photos of buildings and urban landscape of the first Pahlavi era and comparing it with the Qajar era, it can be said that this branch of photography, by order of Naser al-Din Shah, acted as a reporting news media and helped him in the administration of the country and public awareness of the state of the country. . In order to have more complete information about the cities and villages along his journey, he hired photographers. In reading these photos and putting the images together, it draws attention that despite the presence of many historical places in the city of Rasht, photographers were more inclined to record new and newly established buildings and showed less desire to photograph historical buildings. It can also be seen in the existing images that despite the beautiful nature of Rasht city, local photographers were not eager to record such images, which is believed to be due to the current government’s desire to show urban development and modernization.