Ace photographer Gautam Kulkarni is breaking barriers through photography

Whilst Iran is a beautiful country with a rich history, it does not have a thriving tourism industry mainly due to it's international image and what may be perceived as a lack of its efforts to attract travellers.

We spoke today to Gautam Kulkarni, an avid traveller and photographer who loves travelling off the beaten track and puts Iran on his top 3 list of travel destinations. Gautam runs a multimillion-dollar company in Dubai which he started at the age of 23 years and wears multiple hats of entrepreneur, adventurer, author, family man and philanthropist with ease.

He has visited the country several times and talks to us about one of his experiences meeting with a Kurdish man living in the Zagros mountains of Iran, and how these meetings during his travels led him to publish his book pictureforapicture, which takes a unique twist on photography.

"I was travelling with an Iranian friend when we came across this man in the mountains of Kurdistan. Kurds, who can trace their roots back to more than four millennia, are the third largest ethnic group after Persians and Azeris. As an ethnic group, they are vastly different from what the outside world usually depicts typical Iranians as.

I thought he looked very regal, almost as if he was the chief of a tribe. I had my friend translate to the man that I thought he looked very distinguished in his traditional clothes, and I would like to take a picture of him. When I printed his picture and gave it back to him, he was so happy that he wanted us to have tea with him. As we were served sweet black tea sitting outside, surrounded by the beautiful mountains, he started telling us stories of his life in the mountains and his thoughts on why there is a conflict between religions. He told us that the only religion he believed in was love and brotherhood.

The man spoke with wisdom and a deep sense of understanding the true cost of conflicts on the innocent. It is truly amazing how a photograph can help break down barriers and lead to deep and meaningful conversations. These conversations then help in changing preconceived notions that created the barriers in the first place.

Meeting this man left a lasting impression on me and I had to include his photograph in my book pictureforapicture."

Gautam's book pictureforapicture is a collage of amazing photographs like the one mentioned above along with short stories of how he met the people in them.

Picureforapicture is available on Amazon and Kindle and is published by Notion Press. Gautam's Instagram handle is @hobograph and his social media is managed by Groundwork.