Openings

It's shortly after 5:00 A.M and I have been awake for several hours, the excitement of the trip has set in, but the nervousness has also. For some reasons I found myself thinking of pick pockets, although its strange because I have been to Europe many times and should know the routine. I guess this time its different.

As I gaze out my window at the dark sky, I see a lone planet (not a star..because it is unusually bright and non flickering, from the east). If I remember correctly its the planet Venus.

Thinking back to another sleepless night in June, a sunrise was starting and a political up rise in Iran was occurring in that period.

It was close to June 21st, in which the placement of the sunrise from my window lies just behind the parliament buildings. The view is quite extraordinary. I took out my camera and tried different settings, all from experience in taking the same photograph from the past, I wanted to capture something slightly different. So I purposely underexposed the capture.

The result was this, and I called it openings.



I liked how it came out, and I felt it presented a dedication to my hidden thoughts for the people of Iran; although it was taken in Ottawa.

The name is an English translation from the Arabic language and the word futūh, which means openings or new conquest. Although the official language of Iran is Farsi, a photographer friend of mine who is from Arabic decent, used the word to describe his experience in the movement and as a political prisoner in the 70's while demonstrating against the Shah in Iran. that conversation occurred years ago, but I remember his story quite vividly.