India · 2016
Red Turban
He took the end of his moustache between two fingers and gave it a slow twist, the way a man does when he is thinking, or when he wants you to wait.
This story imagines, it does not document. It is what the photograph made me feel.
A red Rajasthani turban, a white moustache he clearly tended with some pride, and a face mapped all over with the kind of lines you only get from sun and time in roughly equal amounts. He looked at me along the top of the camera with both eyes, steady, amused, in no hurry at all.
I made two frames before his hand came down. This is the one where he is still holding the moustache, still half-deciding what he thinks of me.
This was one of the very first portraits I made in India, and I did not understand yet how much a person can hand you just by not looking away.
— Sefa Yamak, Istanbul-based portrait photographer. Pushkar, Rajasthan, autumn 2016. 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.