Portrait nominee

Approximately six years ago, I saw a poster promoting the "Alpenbarttreffen". It´s a championship for the most beautiful natural beard and takes place in canton of Graubuenden, Switzerland annually. I totally didn´t expect an event like this is even existing. It turned out that originally the choice of beard was just a filler at the horse race of the town. However, the bearded men attracted so much attention that a separate competition was created. That was around 1985. Since I first heard of it, I wanted to capture the participants but I had to wait quite a while, till I got the permission to realize this project. This is an extract of 26 portraits, I took of the bearded in my studio on location in autumn 2018.

Melanka Helms, born in 1987, is a freelance photographer and picture editor from northern germany. She finished her apprenticeship as a photographer in 2011 with distinction. In the same year she started her bachelor studies in „Integrated Design“ where she focussed soon on photography again. Since 2016, when she successfully completed her studies, she has been concentrating fully on her activities in the fields of animal photography, portrait photography, sports photography and documentary photography. She has also been working as a picture editor since 2018.