Varanasi, India · 2018
The Crossing
The wood of the deck was still wet from the night when I climbed on.
This story imagines, it does not document. It is what the photograph made me feel.
They were already arranged the way they wanted to be — one with his back to the city, looking in, two turned toward the water. Nobody moved to make room for me. Nobody told me where to sit. I have learned to take that as permission.
Behind them the ghats came up out of the mist slowly, the way a city does at that hour, more idea than fact. Small boats crossed the far water. The skyline of Varanasi is older than anything you could prove, and none of the three turned to look at it. You stop looking at a thing you have crossed toward every morning of your life.
One was watching the city. One was watching his own hands. One was watching nothing I could name.
I made the frame before the ghats filled with light and noise and the river became a place where things are sold. For a few minutes at dawn it is only water, and men who have nowhere they need to be, and the slow work of crossing.
— Sefa Yamak, Istanbul-based portrait photographer. Ganges River, Varanasi, winter 2018. From the SADHUS 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.