List of Photos from Golestan Palace in the Qajar Era to Be Published

The result of a two-year effort by Dr. Mohammad Hassan Samsar and several of his colleagues on 2,100 pieces from the photo archive of Golestan Palace will soon be published in a book titled 'List of Selected Photos from the Golestan Palace Archive in the Qajar Era.' Based on a plan for organizing the albums and photos of the Golestan Palace archive in Tehran conducted from 1998 to 2000, 2,100 pieces were selected from over 42,000 photographs and more than 1,000 albums. Information sheets including the subject of the photo, photographer's name, date of the photo, album number, negative number, glass number, shadow album, and identification were prepared for them. Dr. Samsar, the head of the photo organization project at Golestan Palace, stated in an interview with the Iranian Cultural Heritage News Agency (Heritage News) that the goal of this work is to create an easy method to assist researchers in easily finding their desired photos using the information sheets and shadow albums. Shadow albums are identical to the original albums and contain comprehensive information about the photos along with sample images, making it easier for researchers to reach their destination. In this project, 56 shadow albums have been prepared from these photos. Dr. Samsar also noted that the selection of photos was based on their antiquity and was chosen to illustrate the evolution of photography in Iran. He further explained the timeline for the book's release and the number of selected photos, stating that the result of the group's efforts to identify and organize the photos will be published in about a month, featuring 250 pieces from the 2,100 organized photos. He added that the diversity of the subjects of these 250 photos includes various cities and locations in Iran, political, cultural, and social figures from the Qajar era, special cultural ceremonies and customs, daily life, and more. The head of the photo organization project also mentioned the names of photographers whose works have been selected for publication, stating that the book will include photos from the first foreign photographers who photographed in Iran at the behest of Qajar kings, including Naser al-Din Shah, Aqa Reza Akhasi, Abdollah Qajar, and Malek Qasim Mirza, the first photographer to use the daguerreotype method, along with color photos hand-painted by Luigi Montabone. Dr. Samsar concluded that organizing all the photos in the Golestan Palace archive, which is considered one of the most unique photo collections in the world, is a very necessary movement, emphasizing that this effort not only facilitates researchers' work but also helps identify damaged photos and clarify obscure and dark areas in the images.