Iran celebrates the old Fire Festival despite the US voltages

Tehran, Iran (AP) – I have worked for the Associated Press as a photographer since 1999. Much of what I covered Iranian government or it Relationships to the WestBut I also try to shoot on the streets of Tehran to show the world what life looks like here in my hometown.

The Fire Festival offers a great opportunity for this.

The festival is known in Farsi as a “Chahharshanbe Souri” and takes place shortly before Wednesday before Nowruz. Which is the Persian New Year.

To celebrate, people shed light on campfires, make out fireworks and send desires that float into the night sky. Others jump over and around fire and sing “My yellow is your red, your red is me” and calls the replacement of diseases through warmth and energy.

The Fire Festival also has an Iranian version of the trick-or acid, in which people go from door to door and receive a holiday mix of nuts and berries as well as water bowls.

However, it is not necessarily an easy task. Here in Iran Women who do not wear the mandatory headscarf of IranOr hijab.

In the meantime, the joy sometimes overcomes security concerns when smoke fills the air and the fireworks in the random overhead explodes. There are injuries every year And sometimes deaths. In the end I had a bit of burning cracker in my left shoe. I am fine – it only burned a hole through my sock and left a little bladder.

I used a flash for some of my photos to catch people who jump through the fire, given their speed and difficult light. A picture that my photo editor particularly likes shows a man who holds an illuminated fireworks in silhouetting his face from his bright light. Behind him you can see the empty branches of trees in the park I shot into.

Nowruz marks the beginning of spring. Soon the leaves will sprout again.

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More AP photography at https://apnews.com/photography.