Kelaat M’Gouna, in Morocco’s Tinghir province, is best known for the Festival of Roses, held each May to celebrate the Damask rose harvest, and for being home to the country’s largest rose water and rose oil producers, ingredients used widely in perfumery, cosmetics and traditional Moroccan cooking. This reportage was built around the harvest itself rather than the festival’s staged events. It opens close, with petal detail shots and blooms still attached to the branch before picking, then follows the harvest through to the distillation side of the work: the workers who turn mountains of freshly picked roses into rose water, hauling baskets and tending the stills that extract the scent the region is known for.
