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Hamidreza Ghalehei

Cultural documentary · Travel · Visual stories

Discover places through people.

I photograph everyday life, work and ritual in the places I visit, and try to leave enough room in the frame for the people themselves. If you are telling a story about a place, this is where we can start.

An environmental portrait made in available light, the subject at work in their own surroundings.

Temporary photograph · Brian Magill · Pexels License

A wide establishing frame: a street at the hour before it fills.

The opening frame of a sequence — where we are, before we meet anyone.

Temporary photograph · Qing Luo · Pexels License

The practice

Places are understood through people. The stories worth telling usually sit just past the obvious.

This is a cultural-documentary and travel practice built around real encounters: everyday life, local work, tradition, and the relationship between people and the place they live in.

The photographer is a quiet guide here, not the subject. Eighty per cent of the work is observed reality; the remaining twenty is thoughtful direction — light, timing, sequence — and never a rewriting of what happened.


Selected work

See all work

Each project is sequenced — the place, the person, the environment, the action, the detail, the relationship, the quiet moment, the closing image — so it can be read rather than scrolled past.

A narrow market lane at first light, shutters still closed, crates stacked against a wall.

Temporary photograph · María Merlin · Pexels License

Istanbul, Türkiye2025

Before the Market Wakes

The hour between the first delivery van and the first customer, in one lane of a covered market.

A stone irrigation channel running between terraced gardens.

Temporary photograph · Faizal Ortho · Pexels License

Aït Bouguemez, Morocco2024

The Water Has a Schedule

An irrigation channel older than the village around it, and the timekeeping that still divides it.

A narrow street in late afternoon shade, a bakery light at one end.

Temporary photograph · Nancy Bourque · Pexels License

Isfahan, Iran2024

After the Bell

The two hours between school closing and dinner, on one street in Isfahan.

Working together

Commissions, licensing, and a session to talk it through

Destination and cultural storytelling, heritage documentation, editorial assignments, licensing from the existing archive — and a booked consultation if you would rather work out the shape of it first.

See what each one includes

For commissioners

What you can plan around

  • Consent and release practice

    Every identifiable subject is asked before the photograph is made, told honestly where it may appear, and asked how they want to be identified. Release status is recorded and travels with the files.

  • Licensing you can plan around

    Copyright stays with the photographer. What you license is defined by media, geography, term and exclusivity, and it is stated in writing before the work begins.

  • Organised delivery

    Caption, location, date, subject preference, credit line and release status are written into the image metadata — not sent afterwards in a separate spreadsheet.

  • A stated authenticity policy

    Documentary images are edited for tone, colour, crop and clarity. No meaningful elements are added or removed, no moments are combined, and no generative AI is used for documentary content.

How a consultation works

Three steps

  1. 01

    Choose a session

    Thirty minutes to introduce a project, a longer working session if a brief already exists, or a commission enquiry if you know what you need.

  2. 02

    Pick a time

    Times are shown in your own timezone and in the photographer's local time, side by side. You get a confirmation and a calendar file immediately.

  3. 03

    We talk

    Afterwards you get written notes, and a straight answer about whether this is the right practice for the work.

Start here

Can you help us tell the story?

That is usually the right question to open with. Bring the place, the people and the deadline — we can work out the rest between us.