“David Scheinbaum’s photographs evoke the very spirit of yoga. They remind us of the gifts that remain in nature, and through these powerful images helps reconnect us with nature as well as the spirit within” T.K.V. Desikachar, from a letter, February 3, 2005.
People ask; I ask myself, what is my interest in Varanasi? How did it come about? Well, I’m not totally sure. I have been practicing various forms of yoga for most of my adult life. In the early 1970s I met and studied under my first teacher, Guru Janardan Paramahamsa. He taught an ancient breathing technique called Ajapa Yoga. Soon after, I began practicing Hatha Yoga at the New York Ashram of Swami Satchidananda and continued that practice for many years under a variety of instructors. About twenty years ago, I began studying Vedic Chant with Sonya Nelson of Santa Fe, whose mentor/teacher was T.K.V. Desikachar, whom I am honored to have known. These experiences still flow through my body and have accompanied me through life. It’s no surprise that these studies led to my interest in India and Hinduism. In the year 2000, I photographed in Southern India while working on my volume Stone: A Substantial Witness and experienced this amazing country first hand.
However, I do not believe that these experiences alone led me to Varanasi.
Photography has been my primary form of communication since my teens. In 1978 I relocated to Santa Fe, New Mexico, with the hope of working with my mentor, Beaumont Newhall. In 1980, with my wife/partner Janet Russek, we opened our photography gallery in our home. Soon after, a photographer, Rahoul Contractor, visited us. He was quiet and respectful and had a few photographic prints with him. He was looking to find a location to set up a darkroom to print some of his negatives from India. To this day, etched in my memory, I remember looking at Raul’s few images of slightly blurred figures in the waters of an ancient looking place. So profound was the palate he used, so soft and pastel-like, blends of color in a mysterious haze, figures in the waters backed by ancient buildings. I had not seen photographs like these before. Were they historical? They looked as if they were photographs from the 19th century, but they were in color. He told us about this place, Varanasi. Those images have stayed in my psyche for the past forty years, and it has taken me until 2016 to make my first pilgrimage to Varanasi to experience it for myself. It was not photographing that brought me there at first but the desire to experience the place and people. I wanted to learn about the ancient practices that took place in and around the Ganges. But I did photograph, and those photographs led me to other visits and more image making.
In the past, my photography has brought me to many places on our planet. I have photographed historic and iconic sites and have been awed by these places and people. I have felt the energy these “power spots” emanate: the Acropolis in Athens, Greece, The Great Wall in China, the giant Moai of the Rapa Nui on Easter Island, the peaceful Zen Gardens of Kyoto, Celtic stones and sites in Scotland, and the Ancient Temples of Angkor Wat in Cambodia, to name a few. In these places and others like them, we can see the historical remnants of past histories. We can learn the stories and, in many cases, we can feel the power and energy in those structures or on those spots. But, in Varanasi, unlike any place I have been, you are in some sort of time warp where you are living in the history as if time there has never stopped, a continuum of thousands of years without much change. The people, both residents and pilgrims, continue their daily practices and worship in much the same way they have been followed for millennia.
Being in Varanasi is like being on a thread that has been pulled from the cloth from the beginning of time. In this city, you don’t see history; you are a part of it. The power of this place to my mind is unparalleled, and although I made photographs here, I don’t pretend, nor am I under any delusions, that it can be captured in pictures alone. It must be experienced to fully understand the secrets she harbors. That said, I have tried to share with you what I experience there.
What is hard to capture in still photographs is the fullness of all our senses. One of the first things a visitor experiences is a sensual overload. It is the most cacophonous place I have been; it is so loud, the noise coming mostly from cars, tuk tuks, rickshaws, and bicycles. Everyone keeps a hand on their horn or bell pretty much at all times. The smells, at every inhalation, one experiences mixtures of glorious floral scents, incense, mixed with food smells cooking on the streets and in stalls throughout the city, mixed with urine and feces, both human and animal, and smoke from the burning Ghats. Your eyes, ears, and nose get a workout like never before. The result is both confusion and excitement. At every turn you are seeing and feeling things that can be experienced in few if any other places in the world. But, overriding all this, is a calm and spiritualty that permeates oneself that is so comforting, and regardless if you are seeing a most beautiful flower or someone in deep prayer or a body burning, one feels such a sense of peace that I have no words for.
As I walk the streets and alleys, some so narrow that outstretched arms can touch both sides, you are as likely to be confronted by groups of pilgrims, a motorcyclist, a cow or a body being carried on a bamboo stretcher by family members. Sometimes one can squeeze by; other times you back out or stand in a doorway. The streets are winding, filled with shrines and temples at virtually every step of the way towards the Ghats, the steps leading down to the rivers edge. It’s on the Ghats that one experiences the prayers and ceremony practiced in both life and death. Priests line the water’s edge, offering spiritual guidance and blessing. Sellers of an assortment of goods - candles to float on the river, copper pots to hold her water, beads, flowers - my list would be endless. There is a constant stream of pilgrims walking the shore from beginning to end, stopping for puja at the temples, statuary, or lingams along the way. So much is going on, all day and night. Boatman row (or motor) the river back and forth, especially at sunrise and sunset, to observe the morning and evening ceremonies that both wake and put to sleep the Mother Ganga.
How do my photography projects start? Why do I choose certain subjects? I’m still not totally sure. But I do know for me, I could not devote the time nor immerse myself in a topic that doesn’t begin in my heart. The photographer Ralph Steiner told me that a photographer’s cable release begins in the heart and ends on the shutter button, and the photographer Sebastião Salgado informed me that photographs are given, not taken, and that gift must be earned.