What the photograph could not hold |

Chennai edition



I reached the Chennai flower market at 4.45 in the morning with a camera and no shared language.

At first, I was someone to be watched. Then, slowly, something shifted. A smile became a conversation. Suspicion made room for curiosity. I was no longer standing entirely outside the morning.

The photographs hold the flowers, the faces and the hands that allowed me closer.

What they cannot hold is the distance between arriving somewhere and being allowed to belong.

Perhaps that is the part I came home remembering most.