واکاوی عکس های نیشابور در دوران قاجار

Photography entered Iran in 1842, three years after its invention. With the reigning of Naser al-Din Shah Qajar being started, he soon realized the considerable function of photography in governing the Country, and along with taking photos of his harem and internal parts of his palace, he recruited a number of photographers and sent them all over Iran in order for them to photograph whatever that seemed important and remarkable. Neyshabur was a destination for these photographers, and each of them, according to their goal and knowledge, depicted Neyshabur in their works and photos.
With respect to the lack of a source to have investigated the history of photography in Neyshabur, it seems a must to conduct a study as a harbinger of this historiography. Therefore, the present study aims to present the history of photography in Neyshabur in the era of Qajar, and to investigate photography status in Neyshabur in the history of photography of Iran, and to shed light upon its aspects and features. Moreover, through reading the photos taken out of this investigation, and studying its features, reasons, and conditions, it examines the hypothesis whether there are common characteristics in the photographs of Neishabur during the Qajar era that can be listed as the main characteristics of Neyshabour's photography and these characteristics lead us to a single reading of Neyshabour's photography in this period. A different structure is apparently needed to achieve such goals and such a hypothesis, and a number of questions are posed which are answered in each section.
In investigating the arrival of photography in Iran, and in a more meticulous look upon the arrival of photography in Khorasan province of Iran, it is aimed to inquire the relationship between the photos of the area with the totality of photography in Qajar’s era. Furthermore, the study aims to study the status of photography of Neyshabur in the history of Khorasan’s photography through collecting historical accounts as to Khorasan’s photography through written and visual sources and with respect to the fact that the possible destination of photographers was Mashhad, on the way of which they passed Neyshabur. Besides presenting the history of photography in Neyshabur, the study helps to gain a more complete understanding of different functions of photography for the King. Taking into account such functions later resulted in forming photo albums of the Qajar era.
After identifying the photographers, it seems to be necessary and vital to investigate the lifestyle and the influential factors on their photography along with some themes and quality of photography in the era of Naser al-Din Shah Qajar, which plays a decisive role in the process of photo album’s being formed including those of Neyshabur’s, since these pieces of information result in completing other aspects of historiography of photography in Neyshabur, and reading of the photos.
Then, taking into account the data and the reading of the photos, and in order to test the research hypothesis, it was aimed to see the reports entailed in Neyshabur’s photos in the Qajar era, along with the goals for which the reports were photographed and their function, the identifiable styles in the photos along with the dominant style of the photos of the era, the photographical arrangements the photographers enjoyed in representing Neyshabur, and ultimately the commonalities in the findings to be accounted as the main features of Neyshabur’s photography in the Qajar era in order to provide a unique reading of Neyshabur’s photography in the Era.
This research was done with descriptive-analytical method. Its data has been collected using library documents, Image sources and interviews.
The findings of the study revealed that AghaReza Akasbashi (1904), Mirza HussainAli (1921), and AbdullahMirza Qajar (1932) photographed in Qajar’s era in Neyshabur. Based on the information at hand, local and foreigner photographers did not photograph Neyshabur in the era of Qajar. With respect to the fact that the photographs were in line with general goals of trips and missions of those photographers, and taking into account the photos taken by these people, photos of Neyshabur in Qajar’s era can be possibly considered to be paralleled with Iran’s photography.
Three categories of pictorial reports were identified in photos, common functions of which can lead to development of awareness and real experience of places and people, along with the chance for observing remote areas including Neyshabur, possibility of a better understanding of kingdom span for the King, maintaining pictorial list and completing visual map, forming pictorial archive of people, and demonstration and announcement of the power of the central government.
If photos where the landscapes revolve around historical and religious monuments, palaces, and royal camping could be considered as landscape photography cases, topography yet constitutes the subject of the majority of the photos. 
In representing Neyshabur of Qajar’s era, other commonalities such as utilizing humans in the frame, writing the captions on the margin or the photos, and composition and point of view were seen in the works of the photographers (Table 2). Of the 23 photos, People and only men were present, four photos were portraits, and presence of people in the other photos was supposed to be used for scaling the monument. People were present as documents, layout, or a combination of both. Composition was seen based on balance and symmetry, and at times similar to each other. In some cases, new frames were seen. Point of view and composition, which were photographers’ choices and out of King’s, were here a tool to show King’s dominance over the place. With approaching the end of Naser al-Din Shah’s era and the position of King’s being weakened as the main axis of vision in the Country, significant changes were seen in choosing a point of view from high.
Depending on the presence of the King on the trip, captions were used to serve for enriching the experience and maintaining a better reading of the photo for the King, and to complete citation-based aspect for the future generations. In the photos of AghaReza and Husseinali, captions have been applied inside the photos or on the margins for introducing the place, people, the venue, and indicating the King’s presence (royal camps), while AbdullahMirza Qajar’s photos, through a structured way both visually and in terms of content, introduced the place and the people along with descriptive and detailed information. The captions along with the photos are able to provide comprehensive reports and pieces of information to the King for the trips he wasn’t present on.
Similar pictorial reports with common functions, identification of dominant styles in photos and concurrent meanings in selected subjects and commonalities in photographical arrangements such as the quality of representation of people and photo information along the photos, composition, and points of view with similar functions can all be taken into account as the main components of photography of Neyshabur in the Qajar's era, all of which form a unique reading of photography of Neyshabur in the Era. I should note that the findings of the research are based on the reading of taken photos in Neyshabur, and may not be generalizable to other photos in Iran’s history of photography, and yet be facilitator for future research.