I had been in Iran for more than a month when Ayatollah Khomeini returned from exile in France on February 1, 1979.RELATED ARTICLE
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– David Burnett He soon set up headquarters in the Refah School in a quiet Tehran neighborhood. Tens of thousands of supporters streamed through the school grounds each day to pay their respects. I photographed Khomeini from those crowds, standing in the midst of the excitement and tumult. After four days of quietly pestering the media contact who was a former economics professor pressed into service to deal with the foreign reporters, he finally agreed that perhaps seeing the imam from inside the school was worthwhile. (Story continues below.)
Photographer David Burnett writes, "Arriving the day after Christmas [1978] in Tehran, I found myself in a place that was slowly falling apart." Above, the wounded are evacuated from 24 of Esfand Square in Tehran on December 27, 1978
Supporters strain to catch a glimpse of the Ayatollah Khomeini at the Refah School in Tehran on February 3, 1979
Ayatollah Khomeini during a press conference at the Refah School in Tehran on February 2, 1979
Ayatollah Khomeini is served tea in his room at the Refah School in Tehran by Ayatollah Khalkhali, who later became known as "the hanging judge." Khomeini had returned from exile in France days earlier, on February 1, 1979
The shah emerges from Niavaran Palace to meet the press in Tehran on January 1, 1979
The scene near the central market in Tehran after Friday prayers on January 12, 1979
The crowd at Tehran University listens to a speech by the Ayatollah Mahmoud Taleghani on January 13, 1979
A pro-Khomeini demonstrator dons a jacket decorated with photographs of victims of the shah's repression and a hat that reads "crown of the martyrs" in Tehran on January 19, 1979
The bodies of five people killed in the street fighting lie at the morgue in Tehran on January 28, 1979
Iranian military guarding the prime minister's office in Tehran express support to pro-Bakhtiar demonstrators on January 28, 1979
Pro-Khomeini demonstrators at 24 of Esfand Square, Tehran, run for their lives after the army opens fire on January 28, 1979.
The blood of the latest "martyr" near the University, Tehran, January 31, 1979
To see more of Burnett’s work, visit his Web site.
Moments later, I was granted permission to enter a small classroom. If outside, where the crowds stood cheering, I’d been embedded in noise and chaos, when I stepped inside this room, I found quiet serenity as Khomeini handed his teacup back to Ayatollah Khalkhali, who later would be known as the hanging judge of Tehran.
This photograph could rightly be called a scoop, to use the language of that time. As I left the room, I stuffed the film canister deep into my jeans pockets and hoped for its safe journey back to my hotel. From there, these undeveloped pictures would be taken to the airport and carried by someone I’d never met before on their journey to my editor’s desk in New York.
Now, 30 years later, photographs I took during the 44 days I worked in Tehran are in a book, “44 Days: Iran and the Remaking of the World,” which was published last year by National Geographic Books.