Sikh photographers go beyond beards and turbans with their portraits

Photographers Naroop Singh Jhooti and Amit Amin noticed last year that beards were becoming a fashion statement in the UK.

"We were seeing these guys on the street having these really long beards and we thought, 'Wait a minute, our people, Sikh men, have been growing their beards for years," Jhooti says.

The two men, both Sikhs, had always considered doing a project to showcase their heritage and identity. They realized this was the moment, and the "The Singh Project" was born.

It's a powerful series of portraits of Sikh men, all of whom have long beards and wear turbans. "When these guys were in the studio, it was a chance for them to perform," Amin says. "You could sense the pride that they had in the work," Jhooti adds.

It still wasn't easy to make the men relax and show their true personalities for the camera. "We're used to working with people who've been in front of the camera all the time," Jhooti says, "and here are a bunch of guys who, the majority of them have never had their photo taken in a studio."

But the two men succeeded: Each photo is strikingly different, both in the poses and the personalities. The subjects range across all ages and professions, from magicians and students to filmmakers and watchmakers.

Jhooti and Amin say the Sikhs in their community have been supportive and excited about the project, hoping that more people will learn about Sikhism and who Sikhs are. The United States has seen incidents in which anti-Muslim individuals mistakenly targeted Sikhs, included a shooting at a Sikh temple and defacements of ads featuring a Sikh model.

As for the turbans and beard that unify all of the photos, Jhooti explains that the idea goes back thousands of years. "Wealthy landowners, kings, holy men, people of high society would wear a turban to stand out from the crowd, to show that they are of a higher caste," he says.

But the fundamental idea of Sikhism, which was founded in the 1400s, was equality. That's why all Sikh men are supposed to wear the turban: "No longer could you tell if somebody was rich or poor," Jhooti says. "Everybody was the same." The same thing goes for "Singh," an extremely common middle name among Sikhs.

As for the beard, Jhooti says the reason Sikh men grow them is to stand out and show their identity as members of the religion. He points out that beards are common in other religions as well, including Islam and Judaism. After all, he says, "Jesus had a beard himself."