2010 photographers

here is a full list of the talented photographers contributing to nineteen days during the Bahá’í Fast of 2010. please take some time to visit their sites and enjoy more of their sparkling work …

2 march 2010 – leili egea (haifa, israel) & shahriar erfanian (quito, ecuador)
born and raised in spain, leili is currently serving at the Bahá’í World Centre in haifa, israel.  she has had no training in photography, but it is her favorite thing to do.  she finds that she can look with a different eye when she looks through her camera and capture things that she would never see on her own. 
photography is shahriar’s passion; he loves sports; traveling is his favorite thing; he can’t live without music; and he always enjoys a good movie.  

3 march 2010 – ramin hossaini (windhoek, namibia) & leili towfigh (boston, u.s.a.)
ramin has been keeping it real since 1983 in namibia, south africa, israel, and the internet. passionate about the environment, ramin became 100% bio-degradable in 2003.
leili towfigh is an educational technologist who also works as a photographer, painter, ceramic artist and writer. she has had opportunities to take photographs on five continents. she lives in boston.

4 march 2010 – kadria simons (victoria, canada) & brendan aaron (chicago, u.s.a.)
kadria simons favors film above digital, prefers black & white to color, and is primarily interested in the play and interaction of light in her subjects.
brendan currently resides in chicago.  he’s constantly lamenting the lack of three-piece-suit options and wishing nikon would come out with the successor to the D700.

5 march 2010 – sarah johnson (guam, u.s.a.) & ronnie yousefzadeh-bindra (yorkshire, u.k.)
sarah lives on guam with her husband and son and enjoys taking macro nature photos.
ronnie likes to experiment with different styles of photography, constantly challenging himself technically and artistically, always bearing in mind, as ansel adams said, “there are always two people in every picture:  the photographer and the viewer”.

6 march 2010 – elizabeth sabet (brooklyn, u.s.a.) & ryan lash (vancouver, canada)
elizabeth lives in brooklyn with her husband and her dog, hazel. her early excitement about photography was rekindled a few years ago when her husband gifted her with a DSLR, so that she could “rediscover her creative side.”
ryan lash is a globe-trotting photographer and filmmaker. his work has been published in books, newspapers and magazines. he likes his lenses wide and fast.

7 march 2010 – peter sjöström (london, u.k.) & elliott vreeland (ross creek, australia)

peter sjöström is fortunate to live in a wondrous and adventurous place, thrives on challenges and is inspired by the creativity of people everywhere.  he calls haifa, israel, the place where his heart is, which also happens to be where he currently keeps his hat.
elliott vreeland uses his camera to try to nurture his “creative side” as he works in the field of electrical engineering. having recently moved to the australian countryside, he is excited about photographing new landscapes and skies.

8 march 2010 – kat eghdamian (auckland, new zealand) & sholeh samadani loehle (wilmette, u.s.a.)
kat currently lives in new zealand. she was “khatereh” until she realised that in the time it took to explain how to pronounce her name, 100 shots could be taken on a nikon. now she goes by kat.
sholeh has a penchant for organization and all things geeky.  she recently bought a condo near the House of Worship and hopes to bring fancy hats back into fashion.

9 march 2010 – naeem ghafari (toronto, canada) & iain simmons (haifa, israel)
naeem ghafari is a copywriter who’s into old cameras and cheap eats. coolio’s “gangsta’s paradise” is always his first pick when it comes to karaoking. van halen’s “jump” usually comes in at #2.
amateur husband, amateur photographer … iain was born in new south wales, australia, around a quarter of a century ago. he is married to a beautiful german girl named kira, whom he met while serving at the Bahá’í World Centre in haifa, israel.

10 march 2010 – bobby aazami (los angeles, u.s.a.) & alison bird (luanda, angola)
bobby aazami’s love for the visual medium was fostered at an early age in iran after watching his first episode of “the six million dollar man” on television. enamored with his tv set, bobby explored his love for the arts by trying his hand in every medium: from music production to stand up comedy, until he found contentment through the lens of a camera. he is currently the principal & creative director of “our favorite day” photography.
alison has been in angola for just over four years.  being there has been one of her main sources of inspiration to take photographs.

11 march 2010 – anjali pala (cambridge, u.s.a.) & saman rahmanian (tokyo, japan)
anjali pala resides in cambridge, MA, where she is completing a master’s degree in publishing. bespectacled and besneakered, she is usually found making/reading/swooning over books and coaxing her polaroid cameras into working condition.
saman is an advertising guy who has helped big companies sell a lot more burgers, cars and televisions. he loves the web and enjoys taking pictures of his wife, but recently his photographic focus has shifted towards soup bowls and cherry blossoms. he and his wife live in japan.

12 march 2010 – shirin sahba moore (beijing, china) & golriz lucina (nashville, u.s.a.)
shirin is a painter with an affinity for old cinema, traveling & dressing up like a scruffy french detective.
golriz is probably the only iranian-armenian living in nashville who calls new zealand home. her photography blatantly exploits perspective, brightly painted walls, and old film-camera viewfinders. golriz is the co-director of content for www.soulpancake.com.

13 march 2010 – omid toloui (santa monica, u.s.a.) & manijeh afnan-murray (cambridge, u.k.)
omid is usually busy solving complex problems for various players within the health-care industry. in his free time, omid enjoys embarking on culinary exploits, devouring periodicals, discovering old and new music, and posing as an amateur photographer of sorts.
passionate about wildlife, manijeh currently lives in the u.k. but is looking forward to the next adventure!

14 march 2010 – reed townsend jones (los angeles, u.s.a.) & ramez krishnan (oxfordshire, u.k.)
reed is an amateur photographer with occasional illusions of grandeur. his favorite three words to describe himself are onomatopoeia, bacon, and POW!
ramez’s first camera at six years old was a bright blue plastic Fisher-Price with a viewfinder for each eye. these days ramez enjoys portrait and street photography and is experimenting with strobe lighting and film.

15 march 2010 – layli samimi-aazami (rapid city, u.s.a.) & na’im samimi-moore (beijing, china)
layli is a master of conflict, a lover of all sorts of film cameras, an advocate for native americans, a fun-loving wife, sister, daughter & bff. nature feeds her soul, laughter feeds her heart. her favorite (and most used) cameras are her vivitar ultra wide & slim and her holgaroid.
na’im, an unlikely beijinger, is pursuing his dreams—dreams that he wrote down as soon as he woke up, but he can’t quite make any sense of a few words and doodles scrawled across some bookmark.

16 march 2010 – aniseh sjona bro (corvallis, u.s.a.) & saleem vaillancourt (london, u.k.)
sjona is a graduate student in statistics at Oregon State University hoping to pursue a career in the development field.  some of her favorite things are:  laughing so loud that it hurts; coffee with good friends; traveling to new and exciting places with her husband, jason; avocados; and a good book on a rainy day.
saleem vaillancourt doesn’t much believe in bios, but if you must know, he’s not even a real photographer.

17 march 2010 – liam keenan (glasgow, scotland) & negeen sobhani (haifa, israel)
liam is on placement with the Scottish Youth Theatre, inching ever closer to his dream of crafting a career for himself as a combination of robin williams in “good will hunting” and jack black in “school of rock” … liam lives with his two sisters and a mentally-ill cat and is trying to grow a beard.
after being introduced to photography at age sixteen, negeen’s learning continued through university where she studied fine art photography and photojournalism. negeen uses her medium to reflect to the world the reality and beauty she finds in its everyday.

18 march 2010 – juliet heins (vancouver, canada) & philip blyth (queens, u.s.a.)
juliet loves taking life too seriously, finding meaning in everything, being in a constant state of emotional turmoil, taking photographs of plants (preferably puslike, decaying ones), and playing pirates with her two small boys all day, every day.
philip is a mixed-up belgo-british NYC-based interactive-media designer who—to his demise—is interested in everything. lately, he’s been getting excited about plastic bags, the visual display of quantitative information, heavy snow and castles in the sky.

19 march 2010 – mauricio dumet m. (haifa, israel) & razi wilson (sherman oaks, u.s.a.)
mauricio is a young ecuadorian architect currently living in haifa. loves traveling, experimenting and being creative with music, architecture and visual arts. he started with photography around four years ago over the weekends, and it has quickly turned into his passion. he is still learning as much as he can and hopes to apply it more in his field.
razi is a stay-at-home mom with two boys, ages five and two.  she has a BFA in photography from the school of visual arts.  razi has been photographing people for over 15 years and feels like she has a real emotional connection with this art medium. she’s able to bring out feelings from her subjects, which make for very real sentimental moments.

20 march 2010 – amy youssefian sahba (brooklyn, u.s.a.) & leila g.t. (denver, u.s.a.)
amy loves world-wide photographic collaborations, coffee, and her family … not necessarily in that order. if she could spend the rest of her life travelling the world, she would consider herself the luckiest person alive.
leila thinks that garlic can replace all the other flavors.

21 march 2010, naw-rúz – all photographers.