For Country Fictions, Madrid-based photographer Juan Aballe chronicles life in the rural corners of the Iberian Peninsula, capturing the quiet, bucolic lifestyle of its villages
through a rose-colored lens. Inspired by a group of his friends, who had abandoned metropolitan areas for a life nearer to the natural landscape of places like La Mancha, Andalusia, and the Pyrenees, Aballe himself thought of relocating to the country; Country Fictions is the manifestation of his fantasy, a vision of a life that never came to be.Aballe’s images exist at the boundary of truth and imagination, weaving together fragmented moments of bliss and communion with the earth. They seem to inhabit a space outside of time, forever bathed in the hypnagogic light of early morning. Here, the clock freezes; modernity has no place in this precious landscape, where men and women surrender themselves to the beatific whims of nature.
All images © Juan Aballe
via iGNANT