I bought my first camera in 1980, shortly after the revolution, when I was around fourteen. I did not know what photography was yet — not really. I knew I liked pointing a camera at people, and I knew that people seemed to like what came back.

In 1988, I left Iran illegally — no passport, no papers, no certainty of what lay ahead. I crossed the border in the middle of the night, across a desert, on the back of a camel, guided by smugglers. On arrival in Quetta, Pakistan, I was granted refugee status by the UNHCR. I was twenty-two years old. For almost two years I lived among Afghan refugees in conditions I was completely unprepared for — poor hygiene, scarce food, and a kind of suspended time that belongs only to people waiting to find out where their life will go next. I observed naturally the moments of joy and sorrow around me, and documented them with photographs. The camera was one of the few things that felt like mine.

I arrived in Denmark in February 1990 — again without proper papers, again without certainty. I was arrested on arrival while my real identity was verified, then sent to Sandholm refugee camp to wait for my asylum case to be processed. One evening at Sandholm I witnessed a serious injustice against a group of African refugees. I did not look away. What followed were threats against me from another group, and a transfer south — to Nakkebølle on the island of Funen, a quiet place far from everything I had known. I stayed there for almost a month and a half. In May 1990, my asylum case was approved. I received my residence permit and moved to Odense.

I was alone. No family waiting, no friends, no Danish, no English, no map for how any of this worked. I was young and I had been through more than most people twice my age. I kept pushing through — learning what a traumatised young man could learn, absorbing as much of this new country as I was able to. And I kept the camera close.

Already in the 1990s, something was shifting in how I saw. I began paying more attention to my surroundings — not just the people in front of me, but the street, the light, the landscape. I did not have the vocabulary for it yet. I just noticed more.

It was not until 2016 that I enrolled in a two-year weekend photography course and the technical mystery finally began to lift. For the first time I understood not just what I was doing, but why. The more control I gained over the camera, the more I enjoyed documenting my observations. The work became intentional. The decades of instinct found a language.

What came out the other side is what you see here.