Last Updated on 08/09/2017 by Chris Gampat
Feature image pulled from Kickstarter video, all credit to Ken Hermann.
Ken Hermann is a photographer based out of Copenhagen, who while on a trip to India came across a sight he couldn’t help but be fascinated with. The Flower Men on the Malik Ghat Market are skilled men who carry flowers to markets wearing interesting and beautiful dress-like outfits.“When I first visited Calcutta and flower market, I was fascinated by the flower sellers and the way they wear the flowers on – as big robes,” says photographer Ken Herrmann in our interview about this project. “Also the way they treat the flowers, cuddling them and caress them, I think was interesting.” It is a sight to behold and from the moment he saw it, Hermann wanted to share this sight with the rest of the world. For his portraits of these Flower Men, Hermann decided to go a different direction from your standard travel photography look, instead opting to feature the Flower Men in more of a staged portrait setting. Allowing him to really focus on and show the unique beauty of each of the 40 Flower Men he has chosen to feature.
His work on the project got the Flower Men featured in National Geographic and that lead Hermann to investigate the possibility of getting the project published as a photo book. For the last few months, Hermann has been working with a German publisher and they are now bringing the project to Kickstarter to help get it further off the ground.
The campaign is looking for $11,900 in funding and in 8 days now they have already raised over half that number. You can pre-order a signed copy of the photo book for 400DKK, or roughly $32, so supporting the project is not going to break the bank. For about $63 you can pre-order the book as well as get your hands on 5 A4 sized prints, which would make for an excellent arrangement on a wall for display.
The project has about 20 days left and still needs about $4,000 in funding in order to meet their goals. If you would like to learn more and possibly support the project you can head on over to the Kickstarter page, here. Ken is also the man behind Hollywood Characters, and has an eye for creating telling and revealing portraits; so you won't want to miss this one.