Michael Ackerman traveled to the Indian city of Benares. The city immediately had a huge impact on him, and he set out to capture it on film, particularly its religious rituals and customs surrounding the cremation grounds.
People come here to die and bury their dead. This city sends us back to basics: body and spirituality, life and death. There are no loopholes.
Here, a clotheless old man prepares to gird a piece of cloth with holes; there, in a shaded courtyard, a chained monkey gazes at the sky; on the river, a floating body stares at a child. The walls of this city are as naked, used and magnificent as the people themselves. Hands are held out, gazes burn. There are but the naked and the dead. Black and white images "pushing the limits of both light and contrast, bordering dangerous risk-taking."