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This week on One on One, Riz talks with the award-winning photo-journalist and social activist, Reza Deghati.

He is one of a few, intrepid explorers in the world of photography - disappearing into the wilderness of countries in Asia, Africa and the Middle East - and returning with a remarkable photo-record of life at the edge of the planet.

Iran was a very different place when he was born there, in the town of Tabriz in 1952, growing up in a family with a love of the arts.

As a boy, Deghati began teaching himself the fundamentals of photography, quickly realising it was a powerful tool.

His ability to capture haunting images of ordinary people caught peoples attention.

His powerful images that showed the poverty in Iran led to his arrest by the Shah's secret police. Reza spent three years being confined and tortured in prison - something his lens was later to witness others suffer.

He was still in his 20s when he eventually fled Iran, setting up in Paris, and quickly building a name for himself as a true adventurer reaching distant corners of the planet for leading companies such as National Geographic, Newsweek, and Time magazine.

One of the highlights of his career was getting close to the late Ahmed Shah Massoud, the charismatic Afghan rebel, but there were a string of world leaders captured by his lens – such as the late Benazir Bhutto, the former prime minister of Pakistan, and the late Yasser Arafat, the PLO leader.

Reza continues his social activism to this day, helping develop media infrastructure in places such as Afghanistan. He is described by those who know him as the man who uses his camera as a weapon of peace.

This episode of One on One aired from Saturday, July 11, 2009.