Photographer Teresa Freitas Captures Flower Harvests in Morocco and Japan

“In Islamic culture, roses have been associated with beauty and purity, but for many local families they are the foundation of their livelihoods,” says Teresa Freitas, a Portuguese photographer who first visited the Rose Valley in 2023 as part of a long-term creative project exploring the relationship between flowers, people and place. “I don’t want to treat flowers as romantic symbols. I’m much more interested in the way they shape economies, family life, labour and regional identity.”

Freitas has since returned to the valley twice more. Her initial visit fell during the April harvest, when blushing blooms floated on oceans of glossy green leaves and locals woke at 5am to pick the fragrant flowers by hand, when the blooms’ stalks were still soft with dew. Following harvest, the petals are weighed, sold and hydrodistilled to produce perfumes and essential oils, often using techniques that date back to 10th-century Persia.