Nafise Motlaq was living in Malaysia when she got the news that her father was ill.

“I heard from my family that my father is not in a good health situation,” she said via Skype. “I couldn’t be there in time. Unfortunately, he [fell into] a coma.” He recovered, but Motlaq said that she noticed a change in him. “His relationship towards his family was more tight,” she recalled. “I never had a problem with my father, but I never used to receive regular calls directly from Iran, from his phone, to ask me what I’m doing now, or what I had eaten for lunch or dinner,” she said.

“It was very touching for me, after over 30 years.”

While in Iran during her father's recovery, she started taking photos of her family at gatherings. She noticed that she kept capturing moments between fathers and daughters. “And then suddenly this idea came to my mind.”

She realised that no one had really explored the relationships between fathers and daughters. “They usually focus on mothers. Or even fathers and sons. Or mothers and daughters. But people were very interested,” Motlaq said. She wanted to show the diversity of families and relationships in her home country.

She said that even in her own extended family, experiences varied. “Some of them are very religious, some of them are not religious at all,” she said. “Some [have a] very modern lifestyle, some of them are very traditional. Some are very mixed,” she added, giving the example of a daughter who chose to cover her hair, while her mother did not.