Imamzadeh Hashem, in the Alborz mountains two hours’ drive from Tehran, is where a group of women paragliders – modern women living in an Islamic state – gather. Even though they are far from Tehran’s morality squad vigilantes and the main road, they stick to strict dress codes (chador, maghnae’h and manto) in case of intruders and, to be doubly sure, prop their image of the Ayatollah against the van and unfurl their flag. Fatemeh Asgharpoor, a mother of three, told me: "In addition to all that has already been said about women’s lives in Tehran, add the summer heat. The hejab gets really annoying – Tehran is hot and polluted, and we feel boxed in. Any spare time I find, I come to the mountain and I feel free, away from the ordinary weight of being a woman in Iranian society. Flying through the air reduces my frustrations."
Heaven and Hell and The Place To Go… are two pieces of thought-provoking photojournalism by Hengameh Golestan posted on nthposition. Hengameh is the widow of Kaveh Golestan, the freelance cameraman who was killed in the landmine explosion in Iraq that injured BBC journalist Stuart Hughes, and it is via his excellent weblog that these links come.