These arresting images (see M.2015.18.1-.5) of the Tehran skyline are part of a larger project by Dadbeh Bassir documenting the city’s ever-changing and expanding urban landscape. As with much of his work, which employs physical manipulation, the photographer here constructs a disorienting and dreamlike environment by placing a mirror perpendicular to his camera lens. In Bassir's metaphoric cityscapes, skyscrapers and urban sprawl are cut off abruptly by clouds and mountaintops that incongruously descend from an ambiguous horizon line. This composite imagery reverses the familiar hierarchy between the natural and the built environments, the former asserting itself over the earthbound megalopolis by dominating the composition and creating a new, seemingly celestial city. As he likes to note, Bassir was born in Tehran just six months before the 1979 Islamic Revolution. He graduated from Azad University of Art and Architecture, where he specialized in photography and subsequently received a diploma in digital film montage and visual effects from the Tehran Institute of Technology. His meticulously constructed compositions reflect his dual interests in photography and special effects.