New Zealand photographer Amos Chapple has made three reporting trips to Iran since 2011. He visited areas that he described as "stupendously photogenic" but was more interested in uncovering unfamiliar facets of Iranian society. He said that every foreigner he met was taken aback to find that the real Iran differs greatly from the way it is depicted in the Western media. One of the greatest surprises for Chapple was that although the government continues to incite anti-Western sentiment, he felt nothing but goodwill from ordinary Iranians. (21 PHOTOS)
'Stupendously Photogenic' Iran
- By Amos Chapple
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A view of central Tehran from inside a minaret in Sepahsalar Mosque
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The Museum of Contemporary Art in Tehran houses a collection of modern art valued at $2.5 billion. In a little-publicized exhibition in 2011, works by Andy Warhol (pictured), Jackson Pollock, Edvard Munch, Mark Rothko, and others went on display for the first time since 1979, when their owner, Queen Farah Pahlavi, was forced to flee Iran with her husband, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
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Young twins ride on the Tehran Metro.
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At the Saadabad Palace complex in northern Tehran, Islamic revolutionaries sawed a statue of the deposed Shah in half. Today schoolchildren pass by the boots on their way into the palace to see the decadence of the former Shah's living quarters.
