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Newsha Tavakolian

Summertime bathers wade in the waters of Lake Urmia, now colored reddish pink by salt-loving bacteria and algae. Tourists from across Iran came for generations, but the number of visitors fell when the lake began to shrink in the 1980s. Recently, the lake level has had a resurgence, but it is now roughly half of its historic size.

Lake Urmia is an enormous hypersaline inland lake in Iran that has been the victim of a slew of impacts. Evaporation from warming and the plundering of the lake’s waters for irrigation have meaned that between 1995 and 2013 the lake lost around 90% of its volume. Most of it is now a salty desert, and scientists fear the lake may disappear completely if critical water saving measures are not adopted.

Lake Urmia is also home to a unique ecosystem, with its islands providing breeding grounds for migratory birds such as flamingos and pelicans, and a saline environment for a unique diversity of plankton. The lake’s dramatic water reduction has unbalanced these systems, with an increase of salinity causing organisms – specifically a family of algae called Dunaliella and bacteria called Halobacteriaceae – to increase in density and release red pigment, changing the colour of the entire lake. Here, despite this, two summer holidaymakers relax in Lake Urmia’s waters.

In Karaj, Iran, a young boy lights a candle in observance of Mehregan, a Zoroastrian festival also known as the Persian Festival of Autumn. The festival honors the religion's divine being responsible for friendship and love.

A story in the March 2018 issue documented lakes around the world that are drying up. Iran's Lake Urmia, a popular tourist location pictured here, has shrunk 80 percent since the 1980s.

Nestled in the Hindu Kush mountain range, Band-e-Amir is Afghanistan’s first national park. Its cerulean lakes, separated by natural dams made of travertine deposits, are a geological rarity, and the waters attract hundreds of thousands of Afghans from provinces across the country each year. “Afghans believe the [park’s] water is holy,” says photographer Newsha Tavakolian. “I saw a distressed soldier brought to the lake by his family; they put a rope around him and pushed him into the lake. The water would cure him, they said. I asked a woman to push me in. It was the coldest water ever.”

Summertime bathers at Lake Urmia, Iran, wade into waters colored red by bacteria and algae. Tourists from across Iran have come here for generations, but the number of visitors has fallen as the lake has shrunk some 80 percent since the 1980s.

An actress in Islamic dress passes before 2,500-year-old carvings in Persepolis, Iran. The earliest ruins of Persepolis date back to the sixth century B.C., when it was the capital of the Persian Empire.

Tehran, Iran: "This normally is one of the busiest streets in our neighbourhood," says photographer Newsha Tavakolian. "There are traffic jams, buses that zip by, and people navigating the traffic. I never thought I would see this street so quiet."

“Already traditional photographers are challenged by how they capture the virtual world and everything that happens there. With coronavirus, I find myself also physically challenged,” says Tehran photographer Newsha Tavakolian, who broke her own quarantine to shoot haunting images of her hometown. “I’m committed to telling stories, but often they are the stories of others. This time what is happening is also happening to me.”