I was going to India with a clear idea of what I wanted to achieve. For months, I’d planned a trip from the source of the Ganges in the Himalayas tracing the sacred river down to where it emptied itself into the Ganges Delta and the Bay of Bengal. It was to be a documentary trip photographing Ganges life, especially the rich colours of Indian life, and synthesising photographs and impressions into a ‘work’ that expressed the immense spiritual wealth and sacred culture that is so deeply entwined with Mother Ganga; India’s holiest river.

That proved to be a bit ambitious. I finally trimmed the project down to visiting three sacred cities that sit on the banks of the Ganges: Varanasi, Haridwar and Rishikesh. From these three locations, I was pretty sure, I would come back with a vibrant, saffron-soaked, explosion of images and stories that would provide enough for the still hazily defined ‘work’.

What I hadn’t counted on was that I was travelling with a confused, middle-aged man whose depression and failings would alarmingly surface rendering him capable of only seeing through the lens of, as Pessoa says, what he was. No amount of wild colour, chats with sadhus and sufis, bracing cultural experiences or exotic sunrises would change that.

Another of my favourite Pessoa quotes is: