The grandson of a shepherd and a professional photographer, Lionel Roux had long wanted to combine his talent for photography with his intuitive, elusive knowledge of the pastoral world. Lionel Roux's “Pastoral Odyssey” possesses an initial quality only encountered by chance: the project and its author's personality are perfectly attuned. Beginning to work on transhumance in 1994, he discovered that his initial impulse was accompanied by a more basic form of ambition and responsibility: the urge to bear witness to the complex realities of a world whose real issues have been obscured by nostalgia or folksiness. Shepherds and their flocks – ancient custodial figures of the great civilisations – are in no way the symbolic and archaistic remnants of an originally and essentially rural world. At the beginning of the 21st century, the pastoral life remains a significant economic and social activity around the world, but one being impacted by changes reflecting major global questions. This new reality is what Lionel Roux is trying to inventory in his portrayal of the territories and practice of contemporary pastoral activity. Exploring Ethiopia, Greece, South Africa, Romania, Italy and France, he followed shepherds and their flocks, scrupulously photographing daily and seasonal tasks.
