‘This was the last day women were able to walk the streets of Tehran with their heads uncovered’

I started taking photos in 1972. Back then, there were only four or five female photographers in Iran. It was seen as a strange thing for women to do. When I said my profession was “photographer”, my friends and family would laugh. “Photography is a hobby,” they’d say. As far as they were concerned, photographers worked weddings and tourist spots.

Some nurses stopped some men in a car and said: We want equality – so put some scarves on too!

This was taken on 8 March 1979, the day after the hijab law was brought in, decreeing that women in Iran would have to wear scarves to leave the house. Many people in Tehran went on strike and took to the streets. It was a huge demonstration with women – and men – from all professions there, students, doctors, lawyers. We were fighting for freedom: political and religious, but also individual.

This was taken at the beginning of the demonstration. I was walking beside this group of women, who were talking and joking. Everyone was happy for me to take their picture. You can see in their faces they felt joyful and powerful. The Iranian revolution had taught us that if we wanted something, we should go out into the street and demand it. People were so happy – I remember a group of nurses stopping some men in a car and telling them: “We want equality, so put on some scarves, too!” Everyone laughed.



I wanted to join in all the protests during the revolution, but I knew I had to go as a photographer. My first thought was: “It’s my responsibility to document this.” I’m rather small, so I was ducking in and out of the crowd, constantly taking photos. I took about 20 rolls of film. When the day was over, I ran home to develop them in my dark room. I knew I had witnessed something historic. I was so proud of all the women. I wanted to show the best of us.



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This turned out to be the last day women walked the streets of Tehran uncovered. It was our first disappointment with the new post-revolution rulers of Iran. We didn’t get the effect we had wanted. But when I look at this photo, I don’t just see the hijab looming over it. I see the women, the solidarity, the joy – and the strength we felt.



I offered my photos to newspapers and no one wanted them. But in 2010, there was a women’s festival in Syria, so I took my shots along. I received a warm response from those women, both Muslims and Christians. They were seeing the real lives of Iranian women for the first time. One photography student is basing her PhD on them, so it has been very rewarding. I get a strange response from young Iranians, the generations who have never seen women without hijabs in the streets. Theirs is a very different world. Some don’t even know these demonstrations happened.



After the revolution, hundreds of great female photographers emerged in Iran. But when I wanted to document the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, the authorities stopped me from going. “Only men on the frontline,” they said. Today, I’m friends with an Iranian student who has been allowed to go to Afghanistan and take photos of the war there. I always tell her she’s living my dream.

• Hengameh Golestan: Witness 1979 is at the Showroom, London, until 27 September.

CV

Born: Tehran, 1952.

Studied: I did a course at Hastings, England, when I was 18. The rest I learned from my husband, Kaveh Golestan, a photojournalist.

Influences: Mary Ellen Mark and Diane Arbus.

High point: “Being in Tehran at the time of the revolution.”

Low point: “When I had my son, it was harder for me to travel.”

Top tip: “Build a relationship with your subject. Compassion is important.”