David Burnett is a photo journalist who was selected as one of the hundred influential people influencing the history of photography by American Photographer Journal. His portfolio includes photos of Vietnam wars, Chile’s coup, Cambodia conflict, the Apollo 11’s mission and many more important historical moments and events of the last fifty years.
Bernett traveled to Iran for 44 days in the mist of the Islamic Revolution of Iran and captured exceptional photos of the revolution. These photos presented an stranger’s encounter with one of the most important revolutions of the century. These photos were published in a book that was titled “44 day” many years later. This exhibition is a selection of many photos taken by Bernett and during his trip to Iran.

When your job is to be a historian with a camera, you almost never know what the direction the story will go or how it will unfold.  Only later, years later, sometimes decades, do things begin to become clear, as the ever present pressures of human endeavor can often cloud that which you are seeing.

I have always tried to see things simply as they are, and hope that my photographs capture a sense of the lives of the people in my pictures. In almost every case, when photographing events in distant parts of the world, you won’t know the names of anyone, or exactly what their personal story is. But for that one fraction of a second, they are captured by your camera, and preserved in a way we can share with each other.

I was an outsider in 1979, arriving just before New Year’s Day, never having been in Iran before. Yet from newsaccounts I’d heard and read, there were changes going on in the country, in society, and as a historian, I wanted to witness, and tell that story.

In the 7 weeks I remained in Tehran, many things happened. Demonstrations in the street - by literally millions of people, the eventual departure of Shah, and return of Ayatollah Khomeini from exile in France, which was followed by the introduction of the Bazargan government. So much happened in those days that it would be hard to put in all into one photograph. But seen as a group, I hope my pictures, seen so often by people outside Iran, might finally be able to be seen in the gallery in Tehran.

I have waited forty years to share these pictures which I took over a period of 44 days. I hope the wait has been worthwhile, and am pleased to finally have a chance to share the images with some of the people in them.

In 1979, I was an anonymous photographer, taking pictures mainly of people who were anonymous to me, and perhaps now, we can close that gap, and share the history itself, as it unfolded.

David Burnett
2019