“I want to show you the truth in a way that hits you like a slap in the face.”
                                                                                                                                              KAVEH GOLESTAN

Three Glances For Three Hardships by Atefeh Farhangikia is a contemporary documentary photography book published in London by Mehri Publication, an independent publisher focused on contemporary art, literature, and visual culture. Positioned at the intersection of documentary photography, visual storytelling, memory studies, and poetic observation, the publication explores the emotional architecture of human hardship through cinematic imagery and reflective narrative.

Rather than approaching documentary photography as simple visual reporting, the book investigates how images can carry psychological presence, emotional memory, and human vulnerability. Through a sequence of interconnected documentary narratives, the project reflects on pain, displacement, silence, resilience, and the invisible emotional realities hidden within ordinary life. Each photograph functions not only as documentation, but as an emotional fragment connected to larger questions surrounding identity, endurance, memory, and social existence.

The visual language of Three Glances For Three Hardships is rooted in a cinematic and human-centered documentary approach. Darkness, empty space, fragmented detail, restrained composition, and visual silence are used intentionally to create emotional tension and psychological depth. The work avoids spectacle and dramatic simplification, instead focusing on subtle gestures, quiet moments, and the emotional traces left behind by lived experience. In this way, the camera becomes less a recording device and more a witnessing presence observing the fragile relationship between human beings and their environments.

Across the publication, documentary photography is treated as both artistic practice and visual inquiry. The images move between realism and emotional interpretation, allowing the audience to engage not only with what is visible, but also with what remains unseen. Memory appears throughout the work as atmosphere rather than direct narrative. Human presence is often revealed through absence, distance, silence, and spatial tension, creating a documentary rhythm that unfolds slowly and contemplatively.

The accompanying texts expand this atmosphere through reflective prose and observational writing. Instead of explaining the photographs directly, the narratives move alongside the images, forming a dialogue between visual experience and inner thought. This relationship between image and text creates a layered documentary structure where photography and language coexist as parallel forms of testimony. The result is a body of work that explores not only social reality, but also emotional perception and the internal landscapes shaped by hardship.

As a documentary photographer, visual researcher, and photography educator, Atefeh Farhangikia approaches photography as a medium capable of preserving emotional truth and examining the complexity of human conditions. Her practice combines documentary realism with cinematic sensitivity, visual anthropology, and contemporary artistic observation. Through both image-making and visual education, her work investigates the relationship between memory, identity, atmosphere, and social experience within contemporary documentary practice.

Published independently in London, Three Glances For Three Hardships stands as a contemporary documentary art book connecting documentary photography, visual storytelling, reflective narrative, and emotional observation. The publication contributes to a broader conversation surrounding documentary image-making as a space for empathy, contemplation, and human understanding. Through its cinematic visual language and psychologically charged documentary approach, the book presents photography not merely as evidence of reality, but as a profound method of witnessing the emotional weight carried within everyday life.