In 2015, while completing her Master of Fine Arts, Aotearoa-based artist Ophelia Mikkelson Jones caught a ferry into Auckland’s business district each day, trundling through grey concrete made greyer by the city’s low-lying cloud. But spiking those grey walks were small bursts of colour – of men mid-stride, arms full of bouquets. It was a moment Ophelia began to chase, covertly snapping the blurred stems with her iPhone. When her friend, writer and filmmaker Durga Chew-Bose, posted photos of her own husband with flowers in his arms, Ophelia messaged: “Do you see it too?” She did. By 2020, five years of these fleeting moments became the first volume of the book Men Carrying Flowers.

Another five years on, Ophelia’s inbox overflowed with sightings worldwide, each one proof of bouquet-bundling men – including from her friend Lorde (for whom Ophelia shot the Solar Power cover), and from Susie Cave, who submitted a photo of her husband Nick carrying hot-pink peonies. These contributions make up most of Men Carrying Flowers Volume 2 – out this month – alongside Ophelia’s own. And though men carrying flowers has become something of a cultural fixture since the first iteration – Jeremy Allen White’s LA market blooms, Simone Rocha’s shaggy, violet-blue cornflowers clutched in the first look of her recent menswear collection, Hero 35 cover model Luca Goodfellow holding a curly green stem – for Ophelia, the gesture has transformed too: less romance, now more a small act of humanity in inhumane times.

Shana Chandra: The first iteration of the book, Men Carrying Flowers Volume 1, was published in 2020. The world was going through so much then, just as the world is going through so much now – what drew you to collating these images back then?
Ophelia Mikkeslon Jones: I first started collecting these images over twelve years ago, while writing my Master’s thesis. I’d walk through our sleepy seaside town, catch the ferry, then go up to the university – passing through a very grey, suited CBD business area. On the odd occasion, I’d see someone carrying a bunch of flowers; it was this small bright moment I was really drawn to. It wasn’t often that I would see it but when I did, I would pull out my phone and take a photo of the blur of colour and movement within this grey, stagnant place. I didn’t even realise why I was doing it until years later. People sometimes ask me, “Why men carrying flowers?” but much more often than not, it just was. I was drawn to the mystery of where those flowers were going, what they were saying – what their message was. Was it love, forgiveness, sorrow, a milestone? Being someone who romanticises things, I’d make up narratives about someone gifting the flowers, and how they’d be received in that private moment – this public gesture headed toward an intimate one.

SC: Now, when you look at this new collection of images in a different world, has their meaning changed for you?
OMJ: I think so. Because of the layered landscape of the world right now. I think these images are portals to something. They’re not, for me, just these romantic gestures they used to be. I was quite caught up in the love of it all before, whereas now, I still see that of course, but there’s also an element of hope, or something else at play. Kindness, connection, closeness, these feel really important – maybe even more important – when there’s so much pain and violence around. Now that I’ve observed this gesture for so long, it’s definitely evolved for me.

SC: Since the first book, the project has proliferated and spawned to a point where you now get people sending you images. Have these different perspectives changed yours?
OMJ: Halfway through the time I’d given myself for the second volume, I’d barely left the house because of the worldwide lockdowns. I hadn’t travelled at all (in the first volume, I’d had the privilege of travelling a lot), and on top of that, I’d had a child. I remember thinking, “Wow, this is going to be a short book.” [laughs] I’d been collecting imagery of men carrying flowers in films, thinking that’s where the book was heading. But something else was at play that I didn’t realise until a year or so in. People had seen the first book and had started sending me their own sightings. I’d get so excited, I’d screenshot them, and they’d sit floating in my photo roll alongside pictures of my baby, garden and occasionally, my own sightings. A few people, specifically my friend, Nabil Samadani, who lives in California, was sending me more photos than I was taking myself. I realised –this is the book. It snowballed in such a beautiful way. It was mine, but now it was all these other people’s too.

SC: It’s amazing that you’ve created this way of seeing for people.
OMJ: I love seeing other people’s images because I’ve [taken them] for such a long time. The images that I took in this book – even in the first book – I get quite close to people. I have some strange confidence that comes over me that allows me to get quite close, though I don’t want their faces in the shot, because it’s the moment of hands, flowers, colour and blur that I’m interested in. What I love about the photos I receive from other people, although we’ve cropped them for privacy, is that they’re much more pulled back. You’re seeing more of the landscape, more of a sense of place, which I love because I’m not taking them, so it tells me more about where that person was.

Nabil took a whole bunch of photographs in California and Mexico, and wrote a piece of text peppered throughout the book where he decides he needs a change and goes to Paris for a few months. He takes the most divine pictures there. Then there’s this amazing moment in the book where he sees a man in the early morning carrying a bag of flowers, and eight hours later he sees him again, still with the bag of flowers, but he’s given them to the man he’s with.

“I was drawn to the mystery of where those flowers were going, what they were saying – what their message was.”

SC: In this volume, the photos show more context of place, but there’s also more text about each image, too.
OMJ: This is another thing that’s so exciting to me. In both books, the same ‘credits’ are asked for each image: the date, the place, the flowers, and the memory.  In the first book it was just me, and for the ‘memory’ I’d write a few key words – sometimes straightforward, sometimes poetic. When I started receiving these images and, years later, asked people to recall their memories that day, some people wrote long paragraphs or poems. That’s what feels different about this book. Although the size and form are similar, the density of images and writing from contributors feels really different. I’m so honoured people spent the time doing that.

“It’s the moment of hands, flowers, colour and blur that I’m interested in.”

SC: Has an image been completely changed by the context of the caption?
OMJ: My sister-in-law took the photo on the cover, this blurred, gorgeous image. There’s another image in the book from that same series where she talks about having just been to a funeral that day, thinking about her mother, who had passed away. That image now represents her sharing the experience of that day, her own tender pain at play alongside this moment of a man carrying white roses. It makes me think about the complexities of our lives, and how we’re all showing up, doing our best.

“Sometimes the thing you are searching for is right in front of you.”

SC: It’s so interesting to think of flowers as symbols of decay, too – of mortality.
OMJ: That’s something I’ve thought a lot about, the fragility of our existence, and how flowers are this incredible, quick representation of life.

SC: You shot Lorde’s album cover for Solar Power, and you’re so good at capturing bodies in motion, like the men in this book. I was wondering if that’s something you’ve always been drawn to?
OMJ: I remember being ten and going to a school camp, which I was never very good at as I didn’t like being away from home, and taking a disposable camera. I mostly took pictures of the landscape, thinking for some reason that I didn’t want people in the photos. On the way home, I must’ve had a few shots left and took pictures on the bus of my friends laughing and smiling. When I got the film back, I remember thinking, “Oh, it’s people I love capturing.” The pictures that do something for me creatively are the ones where I capture emotion – love, joy, friendship, intimacy that comes through human connection, or the body, or movement.

Ella [Lorde] asked me to take some pictures of her but I didn’t really know what they would be used for, just that she was making an album. We went on this road trip with no references, just floating ideas; I knew she wanted to capture a New Zealand summer. We had wonderful time at the beach, taking photos, going out on kayaks. It didn’t even feel like we were working or doing anything other than what we’d usually do together. We wanted to get this shot Ella had in her mind. I was actually pregnant at the time, lying on the sand with her jumping over me, back and forth. I think that’s why that image really works, because of the movement and energy in it. It’s similar to the book. In my little thank-you list at the end, I thank everyone who submitted photos, and I say, “Who saw a blur of colour and chased the feeling.” It’s interesting, that word ‘chasing’ – that urge, that movement towards something, to follow something.

SC: Susie Cave contributed a photo of Nick carrying flowers. I’m guessing the blooms are for her, but even if not, it relays the intimacy they share. What else has an image told you about the relationship between the image-taker and the subject that you weren’t expecting?
OMJ: Someone asked me recently if I know the people that I’m taking pictures of, and they are 99 percent strangers. But I have taken pictures of my husband Ryder, unknowingly to him, and I think that in this second volume, because I know some of the people who are submitting to me, it’s like a lover’s gaze, where they’ve taken a picture of their partner. Or, if I don’t know them, that’s revealed in their memory.

Through Nabil’s captions as well, it wasn’t so much getting an insight into who he was photographing, as into his mindset, how he was looking at the world. I love how his final image, which I close the book with, reads: “Upon returning to the US after my trip to Paris, this is a reminder that men also carry flowers here.” It’s this beautiful thing where he was like, I’ve got to get away to look for more romance, or love or whatever it was, and then on his return, it’s this full-circle moment of contentment, where sometimes the thing you are searching for is right in front of you. I am really thankful to him and to everyone who sent me a photo.

Men Carrying Flowers, Volume 2 can be purchased here.
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