Photographer Hitchhikes Across Europe To Take Powerful Portraits Of Self-Ruling People

After being swept away in the flow of constant emails, only to be caught in the dead river of early morning traffic, many of us stew and question the overwhelming pace of our lives.

Do I really want my life to fit inside a cubicle? Have I built a life that liberates me or chained me to a computer? How would I feel if I adopted a life that follows the pace of nature?

These very questions were bubbling up inside photographer Antoine Bruy, when he decided to hitchhike across Europe in hopes of meeting men and women who made the radical choice to turn their backs on modern civilization and abandon a lifestyle that is outwardly judged on production, efficiency, and consumption.

Without any mapped route he met each person by chance, all who live off the principles of using recycled materials and agricultural theory to gain greater food, energy, financial, and social autonomy. None of these people were from farming families, having little knowledge on where to start. All of them chose to mold fate in their own hands by teaching themselves how to raise livestock, hunt, and cultivate.

The photographs from his project entitled Scrublands are serene, like the daily and immediate lives of his subjects. For them, time has slowed down and allowed them to live a deliberate pace.

“No More ticking clocks, but the ballet of days and nights, seasons and lunar cycles.” writes Bruy.

Via New Yorker