Tabriz Bazaar

During our recent trip to Iran, we were fortunate to once more visit the historical Bazaar complex in Tabriz.

Tabriz Bazaar is one of the oldest in the Middle East, and with over 5.5 Kilometers of covered bazaars on ~27 hectares of land, it is perhaps the largest covered bazaar in the world. The structure includes multiple sub-bazaars such as Amir bazaar (for gold and jewelry), Mozaffarieh (rug bazaar), the shoe bazaar, etc.

It was added to the World Heritage List in 2010. The full description and the history of the bazaar complex is provided on the UNESCO website. Here is an excerpt:

“Tabriz Historic Bazaar Complex was one of the most important international trade and cultural centres in Asia and the world between the 12th and the 18th centuries, thanks to the centuries-old east-west trade routes….Tabriz Historic Bazaar bears witness to one of the most complete socio-cultural and commercial complexes among bazaars. It is an exceptional physical, economic, social, political, and religious complex that bears an exceptional testimony to a civilization that is still living….Tabriz Historic Bazaar is an outstanding example of an integrated multi-functional urban complex in which interconnected architectural structures and spaces have been shaped by commercial activities and related necessities.”

Tabriz bazaar still remains as the commercial hub for the city of Tabriz as well as northwestern Iran. In 2000, Iran Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts, and Tourism Organization (ICHTO), together with municipal authorities and the shop owners, began a restoration and rehabilitation project of the bazaar. Just two days ago (Sept. 8th), it was announced that the bazaar restoration project was among the five 2013 winners for the $1M prize of Agha Khan Award for Architecture (Click here to read the news).

Now back to photography… Like any other destination, we made sure we had our cameras with us. And like any other covered/indoor environment, our biggest challenge was lighting. Using hot shoe flash in such an environment is almost out of the question, particularly for the type of wide shots we intended to get. We could not setup a tripod and so again, to get decent shutter speeds for our handheld camera, we had to bump up the ISO. While raising the ISO level improves the light sensitivity of the image sensor, it does so by increasing the gain of the signal amplifier behind the sensor. But the amplifier will amplify both signal and noise at the same time. As such, increasing ISO will effectively make image noise more noticeable. One of the key features that distinguishes high-end and expensive cameras is the noise performance of their image sensor at low light. Thankfully, there are quite a few software tools that can help reduce image noise in post processing. Adobe Lightroom itself has a native noise reduction feature that seems to perform well, particularly with the introduction of LR4.0. There are also tools from Nik Software (now owned by Google) (Dfine), Topaz Labs (DeNoise), etc. We typically use Nik’s Dfine and have been happy overall with its performance.

OK, enough said on ISO and noise. Below are some of our pictures from Tabriz Bazaar. All but the last one are taken at Mozaffarieh rug bazaar which is perhaps the most well-known section of Tabriz bazaar. As always, please feel free to leave comments and critique. Thanks for visiting…