#Click on image to view it larger – It looks better that way!#

Along the road to Hamadan from Tehran you’ll see many a strange sight. It’s best to keep your camera at the ready and your eyes wide open. Keep scanning left, ahead and to your right and if you’re lucky, you might spot this strange bird collecting twigs for it’s nest.

We were travelling at a great speed that varied anywhere from 120kph to 160kph (75mph – 100mph), depending on whether there were any police about. ;-)

This fellow was travelling probably only at about 30kph (20mph) if that, so we came up on him fast and with little time to put the camera to my eye and grab this shot on the fly.

My wife informs me that this fellow didn’t collect these for a rather large nest but to help start a fire for his fireplace, as they live outside a major city/village with probably no other way to cook or heat their home.

I like this photo and I hope you do too.

Canon 7D
Canon Lens 15-85mm

RAW converted to JPG

500 views as at 12 Jan 2011

More info about Hamadan below from:
http://www.farsinet.com/hamadan/

Based in western Iran, Hamadan is a green mountainous area on the foothills of the 3574 – meter Alvand Mountain. The city is 1850 meters above the sea level and is 375 kilometers from the capital Tehran, 190 km east of Kermanshah and 530 km north west of Isfahan.

It is the oldest Iranian city and one of the oldest in the world. At the Media era, the dawn of Iranian history, the city was called Hegmataaneh. In Greek documents, however; the city was named Ekbaataan. The valley of Hegmataaneh in the city contains a lot of the relics of Media, Achaemenid, Sassanidae and Islamic era civilizations. Some of the relics have been uncovered and are on display to the interested. All this indicates that Hamadan has a huge share in the establishment of the human civilization.

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The links below will take you to various sets of my work:

1. Persepolis
2. Pasargadae
3. Persia
4. Esfahan – Iran
5. Shiraz – Iran
6. Time Lapse
7. Black & White
8. High Dynamic Range – HDR
9. Birds
10. Sydney
11. Luna Park – Sydney
12. Long Flat – NSW
13. Sofala
14. Fireworks