Hour Al-Azim Photography Book Wins Bronze at ZIPA 2026

Hour Al-Azim: Nature, People, Industry, a photographic book exploring the relationship between local communities, the environment and industrial development, has won the Bronze Medal in the Book/Zine category of the Zyne International Photography Awards 2026 (ZIPA 2026). Produced and published with the support of Dana Energy and the Petroleum Engineering and Development Company (PEDEC), the book offers an artistic perspective on one of the region’s most significant wetland ecosystems and the people whose lives remain closely connected to it.

An International Recognition for a Shared Landscape

The second edition of the Zyne International Photography Awards attracted more than 10,000 submissions from 65 countries, evaluated across 18 specialist categories by a panel of 16 international judges.

In the Book/Zine category, Hour Al-Azim: Nature, People, Industry, created by Iranian photographer and biodiversity researcher Pouria Ghelich Khani, received the Bronze Medal. The Gold and Silver Medals in the category went to projects from Italy and Turkey, respectively.

The category evaluates more than individual photographs. The strength of a project as a complete visual work is central to the assessment, including its conceptual coherence, overall narrative, image selection and sequencing, consistency of visual language, and the experience created by the collection as a whole.

Seen in this context, the recognition reflects not only the visual quality of the photographs, but also their ability to come together as a larger narrative.

A Story Beyond Documentation

The book was developed as part of the Corporate Social Responsibility programme associated with the development and production of the Sohrab Oil Field, a project operated by Dana Energy.

Rather than serving simply as a visual archive of the wetland, the book explores the relationship between an ecosystem, the communities connected to it and industrial development within the wider landscape.

For the project, Ghelich Khani spent more than a year and a half conducting fieldwork across the Iranian and Iraqi sections of the Hour Al-Azim Wetland.

As he explains:

My aim was not simply to document what is being lost, but to preserve a sense of what is still alive. Ultimately, this book is an invitation to listen to the voices that the Hour Al-Azim Wetland still has to share with us.

This perspective gives the project a dimension beyond documentary photography. The photographs do not stand alone. Their meaning also emerges through their relationship with one another, the sequence in which they are presented, and the visual and conceptual narrative they create together.

Hour Al-Azim Photography Book on an International Stage

The publication of the book grew out of environmental considerations within the CSR programme of the Sohrab Oil Field development and production project.

Its subject extends beyond the wetland itself, bringing together questions of ecosystem protection, the relationship between local communities and their land, and the presence of industrial development in the region.

The book’s introduction was jointly written by Mohammad Iravani, CEO of Dana Energy, and Nasrollah Zarei, CEO of the Petroleum Engineering and Development Company. It reflects on the connection between local communities and the Hour Al-Azim ecosystem, and the importance of considering both as development takes place in the region.

The international recognition of Hour Al-Azim: Nature, People, Industry brings this local landscape into a wider conversation. Through photography, the project invites its audience not only to see the wetland, but to understand some of the relationships that shape it.

More Than a Collection of Photographs

The value of a photographic book lies not only in the strength of its individual images, but in what happens when those images become part of a larger whole.

In Hour Al-Azim: Nature, People, Industry, the landscape, its people and the traces of industry are brought into conversation through a single visual narrative. The result is a project that documents and interprets a landscape while preserving a perspective on a place that continues to evolve.

The Bronze Medal at ZIPA 2026 now brings that work to an international stage.

Hour Al-Azim: Nature, People, Industry was published in 1404 by Gouya House of Culture and Art.