About six years ago, I stumbled across Jan's work when I was doing some research for my Masters dissertation. I wrote to him asking if I could reproduce one of his photographs for my project named 'Dreams of Flying' which was also the title of his photo collection. Jan not only granted permission to use the photo, but sent me a high-res version of it.
Fast forward to last month, and Jan noticed copies of his limited-edition 'Dreams of Flying' books were being sold on eBay for approximately 250 euros. In comparison, my 'Dreams of Flying' poem was being sold pretty much nowhere for approximately nothing. Anyway, just for a laugh, Jan decided to give away free copies to the first 15 people who e-mailed him. I was the 15th. And so a week later, I got my copy of 'Dreams of Flying' in the post along with a signed postcard, just in time for Christmas. I then sent him a copy of my 'Dreams of Flying' poem via e-mail to complete the unlikely loop.
Jan is currently travelling in South India; last I heard he was trying to cross from Tamil Nadu to Kerala. He is a multi-award winning photographer (fact) and all-round nice guy (opinion). You can check out his work here- http://www.janvonholleben.com/
PS: If you would like to be considered for my Friend for Feb competition, please feel free to send me something exciting in the post. Unless your name is Feb, in which case you're a winner already.
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