kombizz's moblog

I was born and brought up in Iran, a beautiful country full of history. I started taking photos at an early age of my life with a Lubitel, a Russian twin lenses camera. Most of my photos in those days were black and white. It was a very nice camera that my parents gave me when I was 15 years old.

I always loved to see images. I remember that I would spend time in the library for hours and hours looking at the different photos in Life Magazine, National Geographic and other photographic journals and books. Also I always loved nature, and the different patterns made in it. I remember because of my Entomology studies, I would spend hours in the laboratory looking into microscopes at those beautiful and perfect structures that God created in those different tiny flowers, plants, tiny nematods, animals and insects. Then after I finished university in Iran, I left to do on my M.Sc. in California, the Golden State. There I was witness to even more of the beauties that nature held in each different moments of time. I remember I was always walking and trying to absorb all the scenes in my mind and memory as well as recording them on film. I forgot to say that I received another precious gift from my parents. That was a Canon camera with a fixed lense (G-III QL17). Then after I finished my studies, I returned to Iran for work. I consider myself an artist photographer.

At present I have a lovely Minolta Dynax 7, Mamiya 7II with few lenses. I still love and adore nature and all aspects of it. As a result I love macro photography, landscape, architecture (old and new), and many other categories like artistic abstracts, travel, people, fashion, and photo journalism.

In February 2008, I was delighted to be one of the Amateur UK Photographers short-listed in the Sony World Photography Competition 2008. http://www.worldphotographyawards.org/shortlist/amateur-AB.html

> I have a vast numbers of printed photos, slides and thousands of negatives which all are archived in many folders.

I love to share my observations through my photos with those people who love and appreciate.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kombizz/

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Blood Diamond

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I watched a very dramatic and sad documentary reportage on the Vanguard Current TV which made me cry. For few days I was not able to eat, and I felt pain in my body. Then, I decided to do something about it.
There is a famous Iranian Poem by Sa’adi, (Bani Adam Azaye Yek Digarand....) which says:[translation]

Human beings are members of a whole,
In creation of one essence and soul.
If one member is afflicted with pain,
Other members uneasy will remain.
If you have no sympathy for human pain,
The name of human you cannot retain.

Before their discovery in 1930, the former British Colony was just a dumping-ground for freed slaves. The legal and illegal trade in diamonds has shaped the history of the nation and its people. Every significant twist in the story of modern day Sierra Leone can be seen through the lens of its diamonds.
They formed a social class which hardly integrated with the indigenous people. After Independence in 1961 successive governments were dominated by a small political elite who exclusively profited from the lucrative trade in diamonds. Little of this national income trickled down to benefit the rest of the population
In relation to diamond trading, blood diamond (also called a converted diamond, conflict diamond, hot diamond, or a war diamond) refers to a diamond mined in a war zone and sold to finance an insurgency, invading army's war efforts, or a warlord's activity, usually in Africa where around two-thirds of the world's diamonds are produced.
From 1989 to 2001 Liberia was engaged in a civil war. In 2000, the UN accused Liberian president Charles G. Taylor of supporting the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) insurgency in neighboring Sierra Leone with weapons and training in exchange for diamonds. In 2001 the UN applied sanctions on the Liberian diamond trade. In August 2003 Taylor stepped down as president, and after being exiled to Nigeria, now faces trial in The Hague. On July 21, 2006 he pleaded not guilty to crimes against humanity and war crimes.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_diamond

Sierra Leone Civil War

Sierra Leone Conflict Mapping

Influencers

The World of Blood Diamonds
Briljant
World Federation of Diamond Bourses

Blood Diamond Trailer

Refugee All Stars

War Wounds