Midnight Worship
Hello out there,
After I spend the night on a bus, driving through the south of Iran, I was pretty exhausted, when we arrived in Shiraz, but also anxious to discover the city. Since the most places to get a breakfast were still closed, I decided to just take a random walk in the city center.
Without having a certain destination in mind, I was probably subconsciously following a crowd of people walking to the mosque for the morning prayer. The site they were walking to turned out to be the Shah Cheragh mosque, one of three major pilgrim destinations in Iran. Interested about what was going on, I kept following them into an inner courtyard. Here I stayed in the back and observed the ceremony.
After a while, I got my camera out and started to take some photos, as a man approached me and started a conversation. He asked about my trip and explained, what was going on. At one point he recommended me to come back tonight after sunset since this would be the best time to experience the mosque.
Of course, did I followed his advice and came back in the late evening. At this point I was pretty tired from last nights bus ride, but just until I entered the mosque. It was so fascinating to see, what was going on inside, that I did not think any longer about going to bed. Probably a couple hundred people were still present. But instead of praying, they rather seem to just sit together with their families and enjoy the moment. Together with the colorful light illuminating the surrounding buildings, the atmosphere was just incredible. So I had to get out my camera, set it up and press the shutter.