I grew up in Rochester, N.Y. in the heyday of the city’s industrial success. As birthplace of Kodak and Xerox, Rochester was the center of imaging technology. This era overlapped with the migration wave of Iranians to the US—those seeking freedom from the rule of ugly men in black gowns with long white beards. Somewhere safe and predictable to raise families. The timing was perfect: Kodak and Xerox were growing fast and needed engineers, and Iran was brimming with engineers searching for new beginnings.

I remember having pride for Kodak as a kid. Our family friends worked there—a tight crew with lots of mustaches. The fact that I was born on the same day that George Eastman patented the film roll camera and trademarked the brand (Sept. 4) felt like an omen.

I watched my dad obsess over making photos. He regularly photographed and cataloged memories in his vast new land, with film and equipment engineered by his people and manufactured in his new city. 

Much of the photos he made were of everyday family scenes. The feeling of being a foreigner in a new land never wore away—everything felt exotic compared to back home.

Composition came naturally to him, likely from his study of family albums from Tehran and Shiraz—when the occasion of making photos was a privilege not to be taken lightly. We revisited the albums regularly, as if to keep the memory of family left behind in our mind’s eye. I knew only my grandparents by hearing stories from my mom and from visiting and revisiting a handful of matte photographs of them.

The photos possessed a certain quality. The framing was clean and deliberate. The subjects were at ease, shoulders relaxed, holding natural expressions. Smiling wasn't so much a thing when being photographed then—too performative, not honest enough. It’s this approach that my father emulated no matter which side of the camera he was on. These characteristics are now part of my own source code as a photographer.