// SEFA YAMAK · V.2026CANLI
SEFA YAMAK

99 · 2016–2018 · Rajasthan, Varanasi & Rishikesh, India · 18 photographs

Untitled Portraits — India · Editions

Eighteen portraits made across four journeys to India between 2016 and 2018. Color and black and white. Edition of 25.

[ Series manifesto ]

I went to India four times in three years — November 2016, February 2017, October 2017, March 2018. I did not go to make a series. I went because I could not not go. The country does something to perception that I have not been able to explain since. It overwhelms the senses in a way that forces you to stop selecting and start receiving. The portraits in this series were not chosen from a plan. They were found. Some in doorways, some at the river, some in train stations, some in marketplaces in the middle of the working day. The people in them gave me something — permission, attention, the brief unguarded gift of a face — and I owe them all a debt I cannot repay except by making the work worth the giving.

[ Archive context ]

PlaceRajasthan, Varanasi & Rishikesh, India
Years2016–2018
EditionEdition of 25, archival pigment on Hahnemühle Photo Rag 308gsm
ThemesPortraiture · Prints · Series
Tone
Format
Portrait(7)
A laughing sadhu with pale blue eyes holds his glasses up by the Ganges in Varanasi — fine art colour portrait by Sefa Yamak, India series.
India · Ed. of 25Joy
A sadhu hides behind his hands, peeking through his fingers, Varanasi — fine art colour portrait by Sefa Yamak, India series.
India · Ed. of 25Hide-and-Seek
A lean farmer in a red Rajasthani turban holds a wooden pitchfork in a dark storeroom in Pushkar — fine art portrait by Sefa Yamak, India series.
India · Ed. of 25The Pitchfork
A young Roma mother holds her sleeping baby at the Pushkar fairground — fine art black-and-white portrait by Sefa Yamak, India series.
India · Ed. of 25Mother
A sadhu with dotted face paint lifts a hand to his eye against a brick wall in Varanasi — fine art black-and-white portrait by Sefa Yamak, India series.
India · Ed. of 25The Hand
A woman's face half-lit inside a dark hood, one eye meeting the lens, Mathura — fine art black-and-white portrait by Sefa Yamak, India series.
India · Ed. of 25The Invitation
A man pours water over his head at an open-air bathing place, the spray caught in light, Mumbai — fine art black-and-white photograph by Sefa Yamak, India series.
India · Ed. of 25The Water
Landscape(11)
An elderly sadhu holds a brass water vessel at the river's edge at dawn in Varanasi — fine art black-and-white portrait by Sefa Yamak, India series.
India · Ed. of 25First Light
A sadhu curls up resting on a boat bow at sunset on the Ganges in Varanasi — fine art colour portrait by Sefa Yamak, India series.
India · Ed. of 25The River
A long-bearded sadhu spreads a red cloth like wings on the Ganges in Varanasi — fine art colour portrait by Sefa Yamak, India series.
India · Ed. of 25The Red Wind
An elderly Rajasthani woman shades one eye beneath a printed veil in Pushkar — fine art black-and-white portrait by Sefa Yamak, India series.
India · Ed. of 25The Dupatta
An elderly woman in a red sari raises an open hand toward the camera, southern India — fine art colour portrait by Sefa Yamak, India series.
India · Ed. of 25Don't
Bare footprints left in blue, red and green Holi powder on a temple floor in India — fine art photograph by Sefa Yamak, India series.
India · Ed. of 25Holi Feet
A woman with silver earrings stares into the lens as a child watches behind her in Pushkar — fine art black-and-white portrait by Sefa Yamak, India series.
India · Ed. of 25Behind Her
An old man in a red Rajasthani turban twists his white moustache in Pushkar — fine art colour portrait by Sefa Yamak, India series.
India · Ed. of 25Red Turban
A woman draws a floral veil across her face, henna on her hand, by a stone archway in Rajasthan — fine art colour portrait by Sefa Yamak, India series.
India · Ed. of 25The Veil
A reclining sadhu with coiled dreadlocks and white Vaishnavite forehead paint in Varanasi — fine art black-and-white portrait by Sefa Yamak, India series.
India · Ed. of 25The Host
An elderly woman with a shaved head and green sari at a temple in southern India — fine art colour portrait by Sefa Yamak, India series.
India · Ed. of 25The Offering

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