Book

Roads of Kiarostami

📖 Overview

Roads of Kiarostami is a photographic art book featuring black and white landscapes captured by renowned Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami. The photographs focus on winding roads and paths through Iran's rural terrain. The book includes Kiarostami's photos alongside his own commentary and essays about his artistic process. His words provide context about how road imagery connects to his broader work in cinema. Technical details about camera equipment and photographic techniques appear throughout the text. Kiarostami also discusses his transition between film and still photography. The collection explores themes of journey, perspective, and the relationship between nature and human presence. Through roads as a central motif, Kiarostami examines how paths both connect and divide the landscape.

👀 Reviews

There are not enough internet reviews to create a summary of this book. Instead, here is a summary of reviews of Abbas Kiarostami's overall work: Readers appreciate Kiarostami's poetry collections and films for their contemplative pacing and attention to everyday moments. Many note how his work encourages active viewer participation rather than passive consumption. What readers liked: - Simple yet meaningful observations of life - Ability to find beauty in ordinary situations - Thought-provoking questions without forced answers - Subtle character development - Natural dialogue and performances What readers disliked: - Slow pace can feel tedious - Minimal plot progression - Abstract endings leave too many questions - Can seem pretentious or overly philosophical - Some find the documentary-style filming dull From Goodreads: - "Walking with the Wind" (poetry collection): 4.2/5 from 89 ratings - "Wind and Leaf" (poetry collection): 4.1/5 from 65 ratings One reader noted: "His poems capture fleeting moments with remarkable clarity, just like his films." Another commented: "The deliberate pacing tests patience but rewards careful attention." No Amazon ratings available for English translations of his books.

📚 Similar books

Ways of Seeing by John Berger This meditation on visual art and photography examines how images shape human perception and understanding of landscapes and reality.

The Nature of Photographs by Stephen Shore The book breaks down photographic images into distinct elements while exploring the relationship between photography and human experience of time and space.

Beauty in Photography by Robert Adams A photographer's reflections on landscape photography merge technical insights with philosophical observations about capturing truth in images.

Camera Lucida by Roland Barthes This exploration of photography's essence connects personal memory with broader cultural meaning through examination of specific photographs.

The Mind's Eye: Writings on Photography and Photographers by Henri Cartier-Bresson The photographer's collected essays reveal connections between visual composition, movement through space, and the documentation of time.

🤔 Interesting facts

🎥 Abbas Kiarostami was not only a filmmaker but also a photographer, poet and graphic designer who captured over 20,000 photographs of roads during his travels across Iran. 🖼️ Roads of Kiarostami combines stark black-and-white photographs with Kiarostami's own poetry, creating a meditation on solitude, nature, and the paths we take through life. 🌳 The book focuses particularly on rural roads and winter landscapes, often photographed through car windshields—a signature perspective that also appears frequently in Kiarostami's films. 📝 Published in 2005, the book accompanied a gallery exhibition at London's Victoria and Albert Museum, where Kiarostami's photographs were displayed alongside his haiku-inspired poems. 🎬 The theme of roads appears consistently throughout Kiarostami's artistic work—from his acclaimed film "Taste of Cherry" to his photography—symbolizing journey, choice, and the connection between destinations.