Rich-Joseph Facun: Darshana Ganga

There are a couple of images captioned "moksha" on Rich-Joseph Facun's Darashana Ganga gallery that are certainly disturbing, but the remainder of his gallery show us Varanasi and its streets at its grittiest, and being one of the oldest continually inhabited cities in the world, it is a gritty city. This is a work in progress, and I suspect that more images will be forthcoming.

For centuries, Hindus have sought "moksha", the release from the cycle of life, death and reincarnation by dying in Varanasi or having their remains cremated on the ghats alongside the Ganges. Hindus from across India and beyond, often choose to live out their last days in this 5,000 year-old city.

Rich-Joseph Facun is a photographer based in Abu Dhabi, who specializes in documentary projects dealing with personal Independence, pursuit of dreams and the discovery of self-identity. He studied photography at the School for Visual Communication at Ohio University.

He documented the life of a Navajo family in 2001; a project that gained him a Pictures of The Year award. He was also named as one of PDN's 30 New and Emerging Photographers amongst other numerous awards. His work has been published by various publications ranging from The New York Tines to FADER magazine.

Amongst Facun's many galleries, I particularly liked Merchants of Main Street, a collection of very nicely toned photographed of stores from all over the USA.