VARANASI, INDIA
DECEMBER 2025 | One of the oldest cities in the world - a place of life and death.
As one of the longest continuously inhabited cities in the world, Varanasi’s ghats have brought the rituals of daily life to the edge of the Ganges for centuries. The city overwhelms the senses, but it is the closeness to life and death along the river that stays with you. Cremation fires burn beside the river while bathers enter its water with newborns, hundreds of boats putter through the haze unloading devotees who have travelled long distances for their pilgrimage, flowers and clay vessels collect along the shore, sounds and smells of ceremonies layer each other stretching along the ghats. Beyond the steps, vendors push their carts through crowded, ancient lanes - past holy cows and a sea of mopeds. You can walk faster than drive. Photographed in December 2025, this series moves between the sacred and the everyday, following a city heard in bells and boat engines, and seen through smoke, colour and morning mist.
Smoke rises from cremation pyres on the banks of the Ganges; December 2025.
A vendor carries bags of cotton candy along the ghats, December 2025.
Flowers, clay vessels and other religious objects collect at the Ganges' edge; December 2025.
Varanasi from the Ganges at night; December 2025.
Devotees arrive to the Ganga Aarti ceremony - a nightly event of synchronized fire, rhythmic chants, and floating lamps bidding farewell to the setting sun; December 2025.
Two women steady an elder as she steps into the Ganges. It is thought touching the holy water is the ultimate path to Moksha - the liberation of the soul from Samsara, the endless cycle of birth, death, and rebirth. December 2025.
Back streets of Varanasi; December 2025.
A man sits on steps near the ghats; December 2025
Man reads peacefully amidst the bustling Ganga Aarti ceremony; December 2025.
An Aghori Sadhu devotee approaches a shrine; December 2025.
Devotee prays to Ganga Ma - the divine mother and goddess of the Ganges river; December 2025.
Woman sells religious garlands; December 2025.
Man sells snacks on the backstreets of Varanasi; December 2025.
Outskirts of the fruit market, Varanasi; December 2025.