Ali is 42 years old and lives with his mother in a town in the West of Iran, about 10 minutes from my home village. I had seen him on the street many times before I approached him. On that day he sang a song for me. Another day he said he wanted to and didn't. He comes and goes without formality and does not conform to the expectations of this society. He is a collector of objects and hides food in old walls, then eats it when he is walking. He appreciates animals, light, shadow and shapes. Always tapping into and acting upon things that lie on his inside, he uncompromisingly ignores a large portion of outside influences.
I never gave Ali many instructions on what to do in front of the camera, partially because he doesn't necessarily react to that, partially because the variety of his movements and expressions, the purity of his focus was more than I could hope for. I saw him several times before I left Iran and took a total of 2395 pictures.