Farzad Soleimani

A man passes by the abandoned boats in a small village near Zabol, The main means of transport was boat as the village was surrounded by water for a big part of the year. Sistan & Balouchestan, Iran.

Boats are now used as water tanks to keep water for the cattle. Since the drying out of the lake almost everything goes the other way around now.

A nomad shepherd prepares food for the cattle. With no more vegetation left in the lake, food for the cattle has become more and more scarce forcing herders to buy food for their animals, leaving almost no profit for them.

Herds of hundreds have shrunk to just a few and yet the area doesn’t have enough resources to feed them.

A fisherman poses for a portrait in Ali Akbar town, a small town near Zabol. He has almost quit fishing as there is no water in the lake anymore. His grandson (left) might not have the option to be fisherman, yet there are no many other options for

A view of Hamoun lake from Kouh Khajeh, the only mountain in Sistan province with an altitude of around 800 meters.

Sistani breed of cow, used to provide one of the most favorable types of meet. With current conditions however it has become almost impossible to keep the trade alive. With no water and vegetation, cows have to be hand fed with food bought from the

With small populations remaining in the area, it’s not possible to keep the big schools that were used before. Here a group of children of different grades sit in a small classroom, borrowed from the Tourism Organization and equipped partially by pu

A shepherd poses for a portrait in his small room in a fishing village near Zabol.

Hamoun lake

Hamoun lake, once the biggest sweet water lake, and the second largest lake in Iran,has been almost completely dry all year round for the last couple of decades. The lake was considered as the main and almost the only natural resource in the region and since its disappearing, things have changed drastically. A large part of the population has fled to other cities either near or far. Those who stay also, have to deal with a good number of challenges, namely lack of resources to live on. The phenomenon has had significant consequences such as poverty, environmental migration and health problems and is important from social-environmental and geo-political points of view.

The lake started to dry up since the build of two large dams on the main tributaries of Helmand river, the main source of water for Hamoun. Both dams were built by technical and financial support of the U.S. government. Global warming and resulting extended droughts have also been important contributing factors.

This body of work is the starting chapter of a long-term project. My hope is to show different angles and vast consequences of the phenomenon through still and moving images.

Farzad Soleimani

I started in photojournalism and visual story telling because of my passion about nature and environment. Anxious about the harm that we’ve been doing to our environment without taking the consequences into account, I decided to turn my lens towards the existing issues derived from our negligences. It still is the main motive for me and I hope to continue my work with a focus on different angles of environmental issues. Currently I live in Denmark and I am a student of Advanced Visual Storytelling at the Danish School of Media and Journalism.