Antoine Bruy's shots of self-sufficient people living in the mountains

Date
19 June 2014

When backpacking in Australia in 2006, French photographer Antoine Bruy began volunteering and working on organic farms. There he cultivated a fascination with the self-sufficient lifestyle, and he became particularly interested in those who chose to move away from cities in order to live off the land. From 2010 – 2013, Antoine hiked across the European mountain ranges, documenting people that he describes as aspiring to gain “greater energy, food, economic, or social autonomy.” Now Antoine plans to take his ongoing series to the United States.

Some of the homes in Antoine’s Scrublands are idyllic and spellbinding, and his compositions beautifully capture the sculptural beauty of the wooden constructions haphazardly adorned with solar panels and surrounded by blossoming orange trees. The shots are inviting enough to make you consider abandoning the monotony of the city and the screen altogether in order to step whole-heartedly into a world like that depicted in the pages of Thoreau’s Walden.

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Antoine Bruy: Scrublands

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Antoine Bruy: Scrublands

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Antoine Bruy: Scrublands

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Antoine Bruy: Scrublands

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Antoine Bruy: Scrublands

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Antoine Bruy: Scrublands

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Antoine Bruy: Scrublands (detail)

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About the Author

Madeleine Morley

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