Mohsen Rastani (born 1958, Khorramshahr, Iran) is one of the most recognized contemporary photographers in Iran. Trained in photography at the University of Tehran, he began his career as a photojournalist during the turbulent years of the Iran-Iraq War. His early work documented the stark realities of conflict, but his reputation was forged through a series of portraits that redefined the visual language of Iranian photography.

For over three decades, Rastani has traveled across Iran with nothing more than his camera and a simple white backdrop, transforming streets, homes, and public spaces into temporary studios. In these improvised settings, he invites ordinary people—families, couples, soldiers, and strangers—to face the lens directly. His portraits are stripped of artifice: unretouched, frontal, and often monumental in scale. They echo the formal neutrality of identity photographs, yet each image reveals layers of vulnerability, dignity, and individuality.

Beyond Iran, Rastani has photographed in Bosnia, Lebanon, and other regions scarred by conflict, always with the same commitment to truth and presence. His body of work reflects both the intimacy of private lives and the shared history of communities marked by war, displacement, and change.

Rastani’s photographs have been exhibited widely, including at the São Paulo Biennial (1998), the Venice Biennale (2003), the Gwangju Biennale (2006), and in leading institutions such as the MAXXI Museum in Rome and the Musée d’Art Moderne in Paris. His images have appeared in major international publications and continue to influence a new generation of photographers in Iran and abroad.

Today, Mohsen Rastani lives and works in Germany. His practice remains centered on the human face as a mirror of society, history, and memory—an uncompromising search for the invisible truths hidden in plain sight.