Azadi Tower: The Symbol of Tehran

Azadi Tower is one of the “must see” places in Tehran. On our last night in Iran, I finally managed to convince my wife that we should visit.

Azadi Tower, or Shahyād Āryāmehr in Persian is the Freedom Tower and the symbol of Tehran. It is about a 15 minute drive from Olympic Square where we were staying but every time I said we should go there, there was always some excuse to avoid it. My wife later told me that a lot of undesirable types hang around it late at night and she thought we would get mugged.

Azadi Tower

We all eventually piled into the car and got there around 11pm. Two of the photos I took looking up underneath the tower required me to place the camera on the ground and move away using the timer so I wouldn’t be in the shot. Four of us stood in a circle around the camera.

The second time I did it, I looked around and saw a few dodgy-looking characters closing in on us and the camera which was lying on its back by itself. As soon as the photo was taken through time-lapse, I grabbed the camera, stuffed in into my backpack and walked away from them. I wanted to get a few more photos looking straight up underneath but with these types hanging around, I didn’t think it was safe.

The photos looking at the entire height of the tower were the first photos I took. Then we moved around the outside to get some other angles, then finally underneath the tower.

Azadi Tower from Below

The tower has different coloured lights so I took a number of photos from the same position to capture the range of colours.

Azadi Tower Tryptich

The triptych is in the colours of the Persian flag, red, white and green.

This series of three was taken in a very difficult position. I had to climb over a wall, then another steep slope up to the fountain. I had to lower the front leg of the tripod and have the two rear legs fully extended. Trying to do all this and see what I was shooting was quite an experience. Thankfully the fountain had been turned off for the night and I got these wonderful reflections.

This concludes our 5 part travel series on Iran.

Photographs are copyright Bryan Freeman – All rights reserved.