Last Updated on 05/12/2018 by Mark Beckenbach
Sophie Gamand’s portraits of adorable, flower-crowned pit bulls can now grace your coffee table!
Four years and countless features later, Sophie Gamand is on her way to turning her amazingly successful Flower Power series into a lovely photo book. While the project was successfully funded shortly after the Kickstarter campaign started, there’s still time for you to grab your copy and pledge support for her project.
The Pit Bull Flower Power book is the culmination of Sophie’s nearly four years of photographing flower-crowned pit bulls in animal shelters all over the US, with the goal of changing perceptions about the unfairly misunderstood breed. It will be a 9 x 12 inches volume with 250 pages, and will include outtakes, inspirational stories about the adorable dogs on their way to new homes, and touching updates on ones that were adopted. The photo book is set to be released in October 2018, just in time for Pit Bull Awareness Month and Adopt a Shelter Dog Month.
The Flower Power project thrust Sophie into the role of a pit bull advocate after she discovered their gentle nature during the photo shoots. After amassing hundreds of beautiful pit bull portraits, she realized that she wanted to have them compiled into a book. “I always dreamed of a book. I want these portraits to be printed in all their glory, and the stories to be preserved forever. I owe this book to all the dogs who are judged unfairly for the way they look, and to the people who care for them,” she shared.
To make this dream happen, Sophie first reached out to mainstream publishers two years ago, but was met with indifference and even contempt. While she was told that no one cares about pit bulls and there’s no marketing potential in her project, she remained steadfast in her goal to make the book happen. Tides changed when she met independent Brooklyn-based publishing house Lantern Books, as well as artists committed to animal welfare and social justice.
The book is available with a pledge of $75, or $85 if you want your book signed by Sophie. There will only be 300 copies of the signed book, so be quick! Check out the Kickstarter campaign to show your support and find out more about this project.