Thursday, September 1, 2011

The New Gypsies of Britain

London based photographer Iain McKell offers an extraordinary glimpse into the lives of a real and raw group of present-day nomads whose culture is built around ideals of freedom, nature, and simplicity. The New Gypsies are British horse drawn travelers. The movement began in 1986 when a group of Post-Punk Anti-Thatcher protesters headed out of London into the English countryside.



Iain McKell spent the last 10 years documenting and living with travelers of all ages: parents, children, couples and loners. His use of fashion aesthetics, a romanticized pallet of colors, and his intentional rejection of many of the visual traits of traditional documentary photography, offers a beautiful series of photographs of this invisible and ignored community.