We’re profiling some of the photographers whose work appears in When the Sparrows Grow Anxious and reflecting on how their images contribute to its power, texture and witness.
We would particularly like to thank the IRNA news agency, which generously donated almost two thirds of the photographs used in the publication. We are also deeply grateful to the many individual photographers whose work has helped make the book such an exceptional production:
Ahmad Moeini Jam, Akbar Tavakkoli, Ali Sharifi, Bahram Bayat, Eshaq Aghaei, Mahmoud Farjami, Maryam Al Momen Dehkordi, Marzieh Mousavi, Marzieh Pourarab, Marzieh Soleimani, Mohammad Mahdi Pourarab, Mohammadrasoul Moradi, Mohsen Rezaei, Sadegh Miri and Sadra Nouri.
We continue with the work of Maryam Al-Momen Dehkordi
Searching for the American Pilot
Remember this photograph. A few years from now, when Hollywood inevitably turns this war into a movie, come back to this image and compare what you see on the screen with what is here: this blue sky, these green hills, this solitary tree, and these few men quietly making their way up a dirt road. You may discover how different reality looks from its cinematic retelling.
The photograph shows four people: a middle-aged man, a teenage boy, and two younger men. They carry old rifles over their shoulders as they walk across a hillside in the Zagros Mountains. There is none of the urgency or spectacle usually associated with war films. Everything appears calm. If you did not know the story behind the image, you might assume they were simply heading into the mountains for a day of hunting or a routine excursion.
But another story is unfolding. Earlier that day, an American fighter jet had crashed in this region, and its pilot had survived by ejecting and parachuting into the rugged landscape below. Since then, different groups have been searching for him, and these four men are part of that search.
What makes the photograph memorable is the contrast between its subject and its atmosphere. On one hand, it is connected to a military incident filled with tension and uncertainty. On the other, the landscape seems indifferent to human conflict. Clouds drift across the sky, spring grass covers the slopes, and the shadow of a lone tree stretches across the ground.
Photographer Maryam Al-Momen Dehkordi captured this moment on April 4, 2026. It is not a photograph of combat. It is a photograph of anticipation – of people moving through the Zagros Mountains, scanning the distance, aware that somewhere among the valleys and rocky ridges, the American pilot may still be waiting to be found.
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