Clementine_Schneidermann_09

Clementine_Schneidermann_03

For Le Grand Silence, photographer Clementine Schneidermann explores her relationship with her brother Nicolas, who at seventeen years of age left school in Paris for a life as a shepherd in the southeastern corner of France. For the past few years, Schneidermann has documented her brother’s transition from late adolescence into young adulthood within the context of his faraway journeys.

In the early years of his life away from home, Nicolas remained isolated, but over the years, he has slowly reconnected with his parents. He lives out of caravans and various shelters, tending to his sheep throughout the Alpes and mainly in Grasse. He wakes up early and finishes his work around eight o’clock at night. His life is quiet, offering him an escape from the clamor of city life.

Schneidermann visits Nicolas twice or thrice annually and keeps in contact with him over email and texting. In her dreamy, sunlit images, Nicolas is at once familiar and mysterious, intimately related to the artist yet possessed of an ineffable sense of mystery, with his imagination and dedication enveloping the hilly landscape that he has come to call home.

Clementine_Schneidermann_10

Clementine_Schneidermann_08

Clementine_Schneidermann_07

Clementine_Schneidermann_06

Clementine_Schneidermann_05

Clementine_Schneidermann_04

Clementine_Schneidermann_02

Clementine_Schneidermann_01

All images © Clementine Schneidermann

via Photographic Museum of Humanity