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During the Iran-Iraq war Mehdi Mon'em decided to record the lives of people crippled in the fighting. He trekked seven provinces for seven years taking some 12,000 photographs.

Winner of a special prize in 1990 for his work, he held an one-man exhibition in Tehran in February of last year. A collection of his photographs will be published this year.

Mon'em, 35, began his career as a freelance photographer in 1979. Since then he has worked and freelanced for the Iranian news agency, IRNA, and a number of newspapers, including Kayhan and Hamshahri.

He spent most of his professional career chronicling the war with Iraq and took battle-zone photos in eight military offensives carried out by Iranian forces.

A talented all-around photographer -- take a look at the Isfahani horseman on the cover of the second issue of the The Iranian.

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