I create and direct books, photography, apps, and experiences that explore how we see ourselves, connect with each other, and make sense of the world. At the heart of what I do is a curiosity about perception and perspective: how two people can encounter the same thing and experience it differently, how something familiar can reveal itself in a new way, and how a shift in the way we look can change what we make possible.
I practice pediatric dentistry, and I also express myself through writing, images, music, and technology. I see connections between these parts of my life, especially in the attention they ask me to give to people and their experiences. Whether I am caring for someone, shaping a story, looking through a camera, or directing the creation of an app, I care about what the person on the other side sees, hears, understands, and feels. A technically correct result can still miss something important about the experience. I want to notice that difference and do something with it.
I tend to describe what I do through actions rather than define myself through a collection of titles. I do dentistry. I take photographs. I create and direct. Each offers a different way to explore, contribute, and connect, and I want to leave room for the next way that may emerge.
Much of my creative life begins with noticing something: a word, a conversation, a photograph, a question, a moment that seems ordinary until I look again. Sometimes that becomes a Paymanism, a thought I want to preserve and share. Sometimes it grows into a book or becomes the starting point for a digital experience. I enjoy following an idea far enough to discover what it might become, while remaining willing to change my understanding along the way.
Photography gives me a particular kind of pleasure because it invites me to look at what is already there. Light, color, expression, and perspective can make a familiar place feel newly visible. Through what I call Phaintings, I also explore how an image can become another expression of the experience that drew my attention. I care about the relationship between what we see and what we bring to seeing it.
The same curiosity carries into my books. I love stories, especially metaphorical stories, because they can carry something that an explanation alone may struggle to hold. A bird, a fish, a shelter, an ocean, or a conversation can open a way into questions about love, fear, freedom, belonging, and change. Stories allow us to recognize ourselves while encountering someone else. They can stay with us and take on different meanings as our lives change. I want the books I create and direct to offer that kind of encounter: something a reader can enter, feel, question, and carry into their own life.
I am interested in the relationship we have with ourselves, including the names and labels we accept, the fears we try to avoid, and the possibilities we may overlook because we have become accustomed to seeing things a certain way. I am equally interested in our relationships with one another. How do we listen? How do we make room for another perspective? How do we express what matters to us with both kindness and clarity? These questions find their way into my writing and into the experiences I want to build.
Music is part of all of this. I often call it the soundtrack of life, and for me it belongs within the experience of creating. It brings other voices into the room. A song can connect me to a memory, a person, a place, or a feeling I had not yet found words for. I listen across languages and traditions, and sometimes find myself translating from Farsi into English as I try to share what a song is saying and why it matters to me.
There is something beautiful about hearing a familiar song differently after having listened to it many times. It reminds me that familiarity does not mean we have discovered everything there is to notice. That is part of what I want to preserve in my work: the possibility of encountering something again and finding more.
Technology gives me another way to turn what I imagine into something people can actually experience. I have carried ideas in my mind and wanted to see how they would behave on a screen, in a conversation, or in someone’s hands. Creating apps and immersive digital experiences lets me explore that movement from imagination into use. I care about beauty, but I also care about whether something works and whether its purpose remains clear. A place to communicate should help people communicate. An audio experience should let someone enter a book without struggling with the player. The details matter because someone has to live with them. I want wonder and function to support each other.
Working with AI has expanded what I can explore and direct, and it has also made me think more deeply about creativity, responsibility, and relationship. I bring the intention, the experiences, the questions, and the judgment about whether a result reflects what I meant. The systems can contribute language, structure, technical work, and possibilities I may not have considered. I enjoy shaping that collaboration, including creating named personas for different projects and roles. It gives me a human way to organize the work and engage with different contributions.
I also want to stay honest about what the technology can do, what it has actually done, and where it has missed the point. Excitement should leave room for discernment. When something carries my name, I feel responsible for its quality and for the experience it offers. I am comfortable acknowledging mistakes, but I want us to learn from them, correct what we can, and avoid repeating them unnecessarily.
The standard I care about is extraordinary excellence in quality and experience. That asks for attention, follow-through, and enough humility to recognize when a beautiful idea still needs better execution. It also asks us to remember why we wanted to create it in the first place.
Kindness is important to me in how that happens. I want to become more considerate and inclusive while remaining clear and forceful in intention and direction. I do not always get that balance right. It is something I continue to practice. I want people to feel included in what we are creating and to know that their contribution matters. I appreciate the different strengths that people bring, and I want collaboration to make room for those strengths rather than reduce everyone to the same role or way of thinking.
Alongside that care, I want there to be play. I love wit, clever humor, and the energy that comes from discovering something together. Children often enter play without needing someone to explain how to enjoy it. Their curiosity keeps opening another possibility, even when someone announces that time is up. I want to keep that capacity alive as I grow older.
One of my Paymanisms is, “Curiosity is the unconscious energy behind play.” For me, that captures something about the impulse to explore before we have fully explained to ourselves what we are looking for. Play can lead us somewhere an overly fixed plan might never allow. It can make a demanding process feel alive and remind us that the journey itself is part of what we are creating.
I often return to the relationship between what is meant to be and what we make to be. Life brings circumstances, encounters, timing, and change that we do not entirely choose. We still have a part in how we meet them and what we create from them. I find meaning in those moments when something arrives unexpectedly and seems to belong, and I want to respond with attention and action.
That openness is part of what I mean by UnimaginableMagic. It is a way of appreciating possibilities as they become experiences, sometimes in forms we could not have planned. I have also begun using the word TechWOWlogy as I explore what technology can mean within a more human, creative, and connected life. I want to keep asking what these tools make possible for our relationships, our art, and our understanding of ourselves.
Ultimately, what I create takes different forms, but it keeps returning to connection: between ideas and experiences, between generations, between imagination and something we can share, and between the person we think we are and the person we continue to discover. I want to make things that invite people to take notice, feel something, see another possibility, and perhaps create something of their own.
I want to do that with care, honesty, curiosity, and room for joy. There is always more to notice, more to learn, and more to make of the moment we are in. Living is believing. And while we are here, let’s play.
- created and directed by Payman Pirnazar