Abbas (Abbas Attar)
[Photographer, b. 1944, Iran, d. 2018, Paris.]

 The choice was to think of oneself either as a photojournalist or an artist. It wasn’t out of humility that I called myself a photojournalist, but arrogance. I thought photojournalism was superior. 
 I know that some photographers have big egos, but photography is simple. In the morning, you put a roll of film in your camera—and today you don’t even have to do this with digital. You take to the streets, you come back home, edit your photographs and show them. It’s that simple. 
 There are two ways to think about photography: one is writing with light, and the other is drawing with light. 
 I am among the generation of photographers who believe a picture is sacred, that once you took take it, that’s it: you don’t crop it, you don’t touch it, you don’t fool around with it. 
 Now I don’t just make stories about what’s happening. I’m making stories about my way of seeing what’s happening. 
 Isn’t photography “writing with light”? But with the difference that while the writer possesses his word, the photographer is himself possessed by his photo... 
 My photography is a reflection, which comes to life in action and leads to meditation. Spontaneity—the suspended moment—intervenes during action, in the viewfinder. 
 Get a good pair of walking shoes and… fall in love.