India · 2017
Joy
He was holding his own glasses up in front of his face with both hands, and something — I will never know what — had just struck him as the funniest thing in the world.
This story imagines, it does not document. It is what the photograph made me feel.
We had no language between us. The whole thing lasted maybe three seconds. He did not laugh for the camera; he laughed at something on his side of the air that I was not in on, and the camera simply happened to be there for it.
Behind the glass the eyes were pale, almost grey-blue, rare in a face that had spent that many years in the sun. But it is not the eyes I remember. It is the completeness of the laugh. Nothing held back, nothing performed, no part of him standing off to the side checking how it looked.
I made one frame. I have made more careful portraits and better-lit portraits, and not one of them has ever done what this one does.
— Sefa Yamak, Istanbul-based portrait photographer. Varanasi, autumn 2017. From the INDIA series.
Archival pigment print on Hahnemühle Photo Rag 308gsm · Signed & numbered on verso · Certificate of Authenticity included
If this photograph interests you, write to me directly. I'll answer any questions about print sizes, paper, and process. Studio visits in Istanbul are also available.