The photo project "The story of a life"

As I am spending a lot of time in Hyderabad, India for working purposes, I take the opportunity to take some photographs. In this project I took portraits of elderly men where one could imagine to see in their faces the story of their life. The observation behind this is, that as a person gets older, his or her predominant facial expressions leave traces in how your face, wrinkles etc. forms over a lifetime. I did a little research, but there does not seem to be a lot of material around on this subject. 

Of course one needs to be careful to not over-interpret this. It is not something a person should be judged by. Every person is going through a lot of moods every day and only the most dominant ones are visible in the face, with others present as barely recognizable overtones. 

The portraits were taken in the old city of Hyderabad, around the Charminar. As I speak none of the local languages and the gentlemen I intended to take photos of did mostly not speak English, I had to revert to sign language. Showing the camera, pointing at them and my face a (friendly I hope) question mark, only rarely somebody didn't want his picture taken. It also meant, that I effectively could not pose anybody. So I took the photo as they presented himself. While most were looking straight into the camera, some were taking different postures, which is another interesting aspect of this project.