My name is Sia Yazdanfar, & I am a photographer & publisher, currently embarking on travels throughout the Middle East. In 2017 I made a decision which would alter the course of my life more than any other ones had up to that point. After spending my entire adult life in the United States, I chose to root up & go back to my place of birth, Iran, to reconnect with family, culture, & traditions either long lost or never learned in the first place. The decision was not made flippantly, as returning there after three decades & leaving everything familiar behind would be far from easy. Yet when all was said & done, it was organic in nature, & despite diligent planning the final outcome rested in the hands of the universe. What in its inception was meant to be a voyage of self-discovery, quickly morphed into a series of fantastic & exhilarating adventures in my mother country. From far-flung corners of the arid central deserts & thousand year old mosques, to snow-capped volcanoes & coastal village bazaars, I was exposed to whereabouts I thought only existed in storybooks & dreams. The desire to share the sum total of experiences at sacred & ancient Persian sites led to the opening of an art gallery in Tehran. I focused on projects initiated by my late stepfather Bahman Parsa, an eminent artist with a body of work which spanned more than half a century, as well as branching out abroad to share the rich cultural tapestry of my native land with a worldwide audience vastly unfamiliar with it. My most recent exhibitions showcase images of cultural heritage & historic sites in Isfahan, Yazd, Kashan and other millennia-old locales. Additionally, I am proud to present two unique anthologies of Rumi & Hafiz poetry, compiled, curated, & published in limited quantities in Tehran. These texts contain original Persian miniature paintings commissioned over four decades ago, with Nastaliq script by Gholam Hossein Amirkhani, the most renowned master calligrapher in Iran. The culmination of years of work by my family, small allocations of the books are available exclusively at my showings, or directly from Gallery Parsa. My aim is to deliver a measure of inspiration & wonderment via the images captured through my lens, & bring everyone along as companions on my kaleidoscopic quests.