Servus and Salam

When Benedict Fuhrmann, 34 years old photographer realized that on his planed road-trip from Germany to Vietnam the mountains and plains of Iran marked only half of the entire distance, and after he had to spend some days on the turkish-iranian boarder to be checked, but later was invited by the boarder policemen to stay there for an hour-length tea-break, he changed his further travel plan and drove around this country for 3 month. Not that he was afraid of the ever-present officials who did not let any doubt of their careful surveillance of this suspicious lonesome travellor, not that he was ignorant about the well-known violations of human rights in Iran, but he felt that all the news headlines in the international media missed a major point: That a country as big as Iran with a population as complex and colourful as its cultural heritage is only poorly described in political categories. Mr. Fuhrmann describes his intention as "We say ‘yes’ to transcending borders and are adding a personal perspective to the image of Iran propagated by the media. Hidden from view by every regime are the real people, the people who live in a country." After 3 month of shooting photographs and videos, Benedict Fuhrmann returned to Germany with a treasure of yet unseen impressions of this country.

Fuhrmann is currently crowd-raising money to present his images and videos under the title "Say Servus and Salam" in a private Munich gallery ("Servus" is common south-german/austrian slang for Hello). You can read about his entire project on his english website or have a look at a selection of his images following this link.