Behdad Esfahbod Photography

Bodies, bonds, places, and moments that linger.

Photography gives me a reason to look a little longer—at people I love, at myself, and at the odd things I come across.

Selected works have appeared in group exhibitions in Edmonton and Calgary.

Content advisory: partial nudity.

∞ In Full

Markéta posing before a window covered in white floral line art — Edmonton sets a modest bar for style, and shopping here doesn’t help. One European transplant is raising it single-handedly—one outfit at a time.
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White ribbed interior of the Oculus rising toward a blue skylight above an American flag — My complicated relationship with America—a nation that is the best and the worst, all at once.
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Markéta seated in a burgundy outfit, holding a small green vessel above a black high-heeled shoe — ↑ Contact sheet

Markéta seated in warm sunlight, hugging her knees while wearing mismatched socks — ↑ Contact sheet

Markéta lying awake in blue light, viewed past her bent knee — ↑ Contact sheet

A tattooed figure seen from behind, turning in motion on a bed — ↑ Contact sheet

Black-and-white portrait of a figure concealing their face with their hair and hands — ↑ Contact sheet

Black-and-white portrait of Asal kneeling and folding inward, her back turned toward the camera — ↑ Contact sheet

Black-and-white bare-chested self-portrait of Behdad wearing double-framed glasses — During mania, my identity can feel expansive and unbound. The doubled glasses hold distortion and clarity together; the exposed pose lets masculinity and femininity coexist in one body.

Related films: MANIA · Identity
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A figure looking down as projected light traces their body against a cosmic background — A body suspended between sonogram and night sky. Projected imagery by Electric Sheep, an open-source collaborative fractal animation project.
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Black-and-white long exposure of a hooded figure beside a car, surrounded by ghostly figures and bright lights — A staged self-portrait from a photoshoot around Halloween.
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A protester holding a Persian freedom sign above their head amid a moving airport crowd — Protesting Trump’s Muslim ban at San Francisco International Airport, after it took effect in his first week in office.
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Close portrait of Gillian smiling at the Sentinel in a black dress embroidered with red flowers — Gillian, my spiritual mother, at the Sentinel—a sanctuary where I took refuge when I needed healing most.
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Black-and-white portrait of Irene laughing with her hair sweeping sideways — My niece Irene. I’m childfree by choice; my niblings and godchildren bring me immense joy and a sense of family.
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Black-and-white family scene around a dinner table with Irene, Douglas, Mania, and Robin — My godson Robin and his parents, Douglas and Mania, who trusted me to be his godparent.
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Mehraveh smiling in warm evening sunlight against a rocky California landscape — For an uprooted serial immigrant like me, friends become adopted family.
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Irene holding an ice cream cone at a mountain lake, wearing bright green sunglasses and yellow clothes — ↑ Contact sheet

Irene crouching among stones beside a river beneath forested cliffs and a mountain — ↑ Contact sheet

Three skewers of grilled meat arranged on a wooden board beside fresh basil, surrounded by grass — No Behdad photo album is complete without a little foodbombing.
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Donald Duck and Minnie Mouse characters posing before Russian-style architecture under a stormy sky — Travel used to be a big part of my life. In Inner Mongolia, near the Russian border, I found a Russian cathedral and American cartoon characters reconstructed together.
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Roadside sign with large Chinese characters beneath much smaller vertical Mongolian script — My work on text rendering makes me notice how different writing systems are treated. Here, Chinese dominates the sign while Mongolian, written vertically, is relegated to a narrow band above, despite the expanse of unused space below.
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