Faces of India is a portrait series that invites you to meet the people of this extraordinary country—face to face, eye to eye—in the streets, markets, villages and chaotic cities that make up the world’s most vibrant democracy.

India is organised chaos at its most magnificent: infuriating one moment, breathtaking the next. Car horns weave tuneless symphonies down avenues of crumbling 19th-century grandeur, while donkey carts clatter past colossal monuments under a blanket of smog. Millions of people share the same land, stretching India's bones to breaking point—yet somehow the energy remains exhilarating, almost addictive.

In December 2023 I finally stepped into the India I had dreamed about for years. What surprised me most was not the colour or the noise (both are overwhelming), but the warmth of its people. When I gave someone my full attention and asked to take their portrait, almost everyone said yes; often with a wide grin, especially once they heard I had come all the way from New Zealand. I would turn the camera around to show them their image on the screen; their faces lit up with delight at being seen, truly seen. It was a small gesture that felt like an honour on both sides.

These are not candid shots snatched in passing. I asked each person to look directly into the lens. The photographs are hardly retouched, the lighting is ambient, without flash, and the backgrounds are in situ: exactly where each person lives, works, prays or plays. What you see is what I saw: real faces in real places.

The collection spans generations and circumstances—elderly people with piercing eyes, mischievous children, market vendors, Hindu holy men in saffron, women in dazzling saris, men in crisp white kurtas or dusty work clothes. Turbans, bindis, nose rings, hennaed hands, religious markings; every detail is there.