Collection: Black

The economic challenges facing the modern human, has forced them into working under most unfavourable and harshest of circumstances. Many of these occupations are hidden away from the eyes of the bulk of the public, away from urban settings. I am a supervising engineer for drilling operations in Southwest Iran. All of my colleagues and I work on drilling rigs in remote locations, such as impassable deserts. This has forced us to adopt a different lifestyle; one typically called “rotational” or “14-14”. We work for two weeks and then rest for the same length of time. There is no real rest involved, though. Workers are on 12-hr shifts and engineers are always on-call. One can immediately realize that the resident of a drilling site not only endure very difficult work conditions, but may also suffer from a range of psychological issues such as isolation, feelings of loneliness and social alienation. This isolation is so strong that swallows the people and even the elements of the surrounding environment. Individuals gradually become accustomed to this separation and voluntarily hide themselves from the society beyond the silence of the desert. Observing how I work and spend my days, prompted me to portray this way of life through a collection. The photographs have been collected during the past sic years (2014-2020).