The beard and the wonderful: Photographer captures men with the world's best facial hair for new book



As men from across the globe descended on the World Beard and Moustache Championships in Alaska in 2009, one man captured the contenders in all their glory.



Matthew Rainwaters, an editorial features photographer based in Austin, Texas, convinced a friend to grow his beard to compete in the biennial championship.

Once there, the photographer was enthralled by the stylish and imaginative creations and decided to shoot portraits of the competitors.



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Proud: A man with a very long beard that twists all the way around his neck, proudly displays his facial hair

‘At the competition, when everybody was done competing, I would pull them aside and take their portrait,’ Rainwaters said .

‘Aesthetically, I wanted to create photographs that were very similar, almost documentary, clinical looking. The only thing I really wanted to change was the facial hair.’

Curled: A man with a stylish curled beard poses for the camera at the biennial event

Bushy: A man in a wooly hat shows of his curly long beard for Rainwaters

Plentiful: A bearded man who attended the championship in Anchorage displays his grey whiskers

Smoker: A pip-smoking man shows off his two-tone moustache and lengthy beard

Facial hair in all forms, from the immense woolly mane of Albert Schmid from Team Switzerland, to the vast lip antlers of Memili Ristioglu from Istanbul, Turkey, was on show at the event in Anchorage, Alaska.



The resulting portraits feature competitors from around the world proudly displaying their colourful and downright wacky beards.



Unique: Rainwaters captures a man with a curled ginger moustache for his book BEARD

Bristly: This man would have done well in the competition with his bushy look

Fierce: This gentleman displays his version of the goatee with a ginger pointed moustache

Competitor: Once contestant displayed a thick, long moustache that was curled at the ends

The photographer has now turned the photographs into a book entitled ‘Beard’ which also features essays from the subjects themselves.

‘This project has been a labor of love and I'm so excited to see it in print,' said Rainwaters. 'I hope that everybody finds the portraits inside as unique and interesting as I do.'



Cool: A man with dreadlocks and interesting facial hair poses for Matt

Hard work: This man's lengthy brown beard would have taken years to grow

Colour-coordinated: This man has matched the colour of his suit to the colour of his expertly-crafted facial hair

Fluffy: Rainwaters shoots a man whose grey beard sits neatly upon his shoulders