India Varanasi Cremation

In India, I spent three weeks in the holy lands of Varanasi, spending each day in a weird trancelike state, the power of spirituality constantly around me. I felt at home here, surrounded by the beauty of decay. I watched the cremation of bodies by the side of the river Ganges and smiled at a culture where death could be normal and almost beautiful because of this and so different to back home. I created this volume of work on dark tourism, as I want to share these places associated with death and mostly hidden from the Western world. Dark tourists seek out these places as they aren’t typical tourism locations to visit but can offer just as much history and interest. 

For weeks every day I was asking my friend to help me to find an Aghori. The Aghori are holy men who worship Kali, the goddess of destruction and also creation. They carry skulls, meditate on dead bodies and eat human meat at the cremation site. This truly fascinates me and I wanted to photograph one but it wasn’t that easy as it was monsoon season at the river, when most Aghoris go to live in caves far away. The cremation ground staffs were to track one down for me at a price. We received the call at around six pm on my last day in Varanasi they had found us one! We had to act fast as the light was fading; we ran back to the hotel to get my camera and then rushed through the cows and people on the streets to get to the cremation ground. I felt nervous. I first set my eyes on him carrying his skull and just couldn’t stop staring; he had this very strange aura and I felt in awe. I didn’t dare say a word as I heard they can be quite abusive. There was a burning body as the backdrop and I feel I captured the essence of his being inside this frame.