Newcomer

originated during my first experiences as a photography instructor, when I found myself working alongside a group of students who were also encountering photography in a new way. Despite our different roles, we shared a common condition: we were all newcomers. At the beginning, the camera felt unfamiliar. Many students were reluctant to stand in front of it, and their interactions with the lens were marked by hesitation, self-consciousness, and uncertainty. Over time, however, through conversations, exercises, and everyday encounters, a new relationship began to emerge between the participants and the camera. Those who initially preferred to remain outside the frame gradually became interested in stepping into it. Hesitation gave way to curiosity, and poses that had once appeared out of obligation or discomfort slowly transformed into deliberate and sometimes playful acts of self-expression. This project seeks to document these subtle transformations—changes that occur not through dramatic events, but through shifts in behavior, distance, gaze, and bodily presence. What these photographs depict is not simply a photography classroom, but a space in which individuals gradually become aware of their own image and discover new ways of being seen. Within this project, the camera functions as more than a tool for recording reality. It becomes a catalyst for connection, trust, play, self-representation, and belonging. Moments when participants voluntarily step into the frame for the first time, encourage others to do the same, or experiment with different ways of presenting themselves become essential parts of the narrative. Newcomer is less about photography education than about learning how to be seen. It explores the moment when individuals confront their own image and begin to negotiate how they wish to appear before others. The project examines the relationship between the body, the gaze, and the photographic image, asking how photography can become a space where identity, confidence, and social belonging are continuously shaped and redefined. In the next stage of the project, I intend to expand this experience beyond a single classroom and work with educational communities in different regions of Iran where individuals encounter the camera and the possibility of visibility for the first time. What is presented here is only the beginning of an ongoing journey—one in which seeing and being seen become a shared, evolving, and profoundly human experience.