India · 2018
The Offering
She had shaved her head, and the first thing the eye does is look for what is missing and not find it lessened at all.
This story imagines, it does not document. It is what the photograph made me feel.
This is the offering people make at the great southern temples — the hair given up at the door, vanity left with it. I had expected the bareness to take something away from the face. It did the opposite. With the hair gone there was nothing between you and the bones of her, the gold still at her ears and nose, the small red mark on the brow, the eyes that had clearly arrived somewhere I had not.
I made the frame against a dark doorway, the green of her sari the only colour. She did almost nothing. She did not need to.
This is the portrait in the series that asked the least of me and the most of the person in front of it.
— Sefa Yamak, Istanbul-based portrait photographer. Southern India, spring 2018. 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.