In the 1980s, a group of people left London to live as a nomadic tribe. They still live this way today, and photographer Iain McKell dedicated ten years to getting to know them.
Nomads they are not a thing of the past. Photographer Iain McKell has been researching and following the modern tribe for more than ten years, since 2001 of English nomads, who were eliminated from the wheel of the modern world in the 1980s, when iron ruled Margaret Thatcher. They decided to never look back.
This is how families with small children, groups of teenagers, couples and loners live their nomadic lives, traveling in horse-drawn caravans through the English countryside. Among them there are poor people and they are the sons and daughters of rich people, but none have gypsy roots. It is about people who have chosen the open road as their lifelong journey. They live according to a mix of the principles of "new age" religion, 19th century romanticism and 21st century "practicalism". Instead of gasoline vehicles, they are transported by horse-drawn wagons, and on the other hand, they use solar energy, have computers, phones and - yes, of course, Facebook.
McKell he struck up a friendship with them, his photos are certainly discovered precisely for this reason, and they are actually wonderful portraits of a self-sufficient society that lives outside the social framework according to the ideals of freedom and simplicity. It sounds quite romantic and so are the photos. But, as the photographer pointed out, it is a difficult life that these people have chosen in order to reduce living expenses to a minimum and follow their philosophy.
All fine and dandy and understandable until the fact that modern nomads also have mobile phones, internet and even Facebook? Iain McKell perceives their life as the future and not the past. Because when cities and technologies fail, only they will survive. Although without Facebook. Anyway, at the forefront of this story are the stunning photographs collected in the book "New Age Gypsies". In this case, they say more than words...
