Amir Normandi

2006-09-14T12:10:00.000-07:00

I was born on the edge of the Caspian Sea in the city of Rasht, in the plush green region of Gilan, Iran.

In my youth, I was fascinated with cameras and intrigued by photography and dreamed of owning a camera.

In the early seventies I landed a job with a Polaroid distributor in Tehran and have been working with cameras ever since - a dream come true. In 1977, I entered my first photo contest held at the Abraham Lincoln Library of the Iran-America Society in Tehran. My work has been published in Europe and North America. I held my first solo photography show entitled “Faces of Pilsen” in October 2003, and in October 2004, I was the curator and one of featured photographers in the “Hejab Exposition” group show.

I have photographed well over a million individuals for their portraits, passport-immigration photos, and their identification cards. I've studied photojournalism, marketing, and photography in Tehran, London and Chicago but never in pursuit of a degree.

I've been involved in social and community related issues wherever I've lived, whether with the Red Lion Cubs Scouts 1961-2, the Pedra Eagle Scouts 1962-5, the Atropot Artistic Group 1963-5, the Pahlavi High Art Council 1965-6, the Tehran Chamber of Commerce 1972-8, the Neighborhood Rebuilding Task Force-Tehran 1978, the Tenant Defense Council-Tehran 1978-9, the Iranian American Society-Chicago 1991-3, the Iranian Artist group -4 Plus-Chicago 1993-4, the Radio Iran-Chicago program WVVX 103.1 FM 1990-8, the Iranian American Cooperation-Chicago1994-8, as a Community liaison to the Illinois Governors’ Ethnic Affairs Office 1992-8, a Community Consultant to the Gene Siskel Film Center of the Art Institute of Chicago 1992-05, 18 and the ST. Pilsen Open Studios 2003-5, Blue Line Task Force 2004.