Flower Men That I Documented In Kolkata

by Patrick Penrose Published Nov 12, 2025

Flowers are a hugely important part of Indian culture, used in everything from temple rituals to festivals and parties – and Malik Ghat flower market is the largest of its kind in India. Located in Calcutta, next to the Hooghly river, it attracts more than 2,000 sellers each day, who flock to peddle their blooms amid frantic scenes.

I got the idea for the project when I was there on another assignment some year before. I had a spare day in Kolkata and went to the flower market, its a beautiful and at the same time very stressful place – the market it one of the biggest flower market in Asia and is very busy.

I got really fascinated about the place, especially the flower sellers got my attention. I really like the way they transport/carry there flowers, sometimes it almost look like they was wearing big flower dresses. I like all these, sometimes strong and masculine men handling the flowers with so much care like is was their precious things.

I wanted to do the portraits on a plain and simple background so the Flower sellers really stand out, I like the way the different man pose with there different flowers – the masculine man and the beautiful flower.

Most off the people didn’t mind to have there photo taken, as long as it didn’t take to long. All of the flower sellers where very busy selling there flowers and where very focus on not loosing to much business while have there pictures taken.

Hopefully people find the portraits interesting, even though some of the flower sellers are poor they are still very proud of what they do and I like that very much and hope people can see that.

More info: kenhermann.com