A woman was chosen as the Press Photographer of the year in Iran. Yalda Mo’ayeri took the picture of a young protesting woman amid tear gas and smoke during the Iran uprising in December 2017-January 2018.
Ms. Mo’ayeri’s photo rapidly became viral and appeared in all the major international press and media. The image was circulated for months without bearing the name of the photographer and turned into a symbol of the Iran uprising.
Iran Photographers Guild Association evaluated the photo as worthy of receiving the award of the Photographer of the Year in the Iranian press for the Iranian year 1396 (March 2017-March 2018) during a ceremony held on May 13, 2018.
Ms. Mo’ayeri who started her career by taking pictures during the war in 2001 in Afghanistan spoke in an interview about the problems women photographers face in Iran regarding employment. She said, “Gender is the sole reason for this problem. The society views this as a man’s job. They don’t hire women at all and they say: ‘we don’t work with women’.”
“95% of women in the business of news and documentary photography are either unemployed or on temporary and unfair contracts,” said Ms. Mo’ayeri.
