documentary

Trashumantes – Back on the drovers road

It was long due.  At last I had the chance to join the ‘trashumantes’ on their northbound journey, returning to the summer pastures of Teruel. However, the experience of the drovers road this time couldn’t have been more different from my previous southbound migration with them a few years ago. Temperatures of 40C, broken terrain, ticks that do not discern between animal and man, angry farmers, and the sun, that Spanish mid-summer sun of 4.30pm that falls on you like a lead weight. This time walking on the drovers road was more akin to a survival exercise.

Looking after your own body during the 10-hour long walks left little time to think about photography. Taking photographs along the way seemed to make no more sense than walking 6,000 sheep across 250 miles of Spanish landscapes. They both verged on the absurd. And as such the images in this gallery are oblique, contradictory and often non-reflexive. They are also rather visceral; they came from the same place that my will to keep going came from. Not from the head, not even from the heart, but from somewhere far deepeer than that.

Make of them what you will. To me, this discordant collection of images reflects the embodied experience of walking the drovers road in mid-June. Because if you want to understand the ‘trashumantes’ there is only one way to achieve it: walk along with them.