Land of quiet birds, Antoine Le Roux’s first photobook!

In 2014, after several years spent in Paris, I decided to go to New Zealand, leaving everything behind. I was looking for a new start, I felt a deep desire to give certain life choices a new meaning.  As a photographer, of course, but also regarding my life in general. Thus, this long trip gave me the opportunity to go back to a more spontaneous photographic practice, simply carrying around a small format camera and a bag of black and white films.

Throughout this whole year, I did many walks, up in the mountains, in forest, at times in hostile or less hostile lands. The need to confront myself with the elements always prevailed. Like an obsession and without even knowing what I was looking for.

‘Land of quiet birds’, born out of the confrontation with the photographic archives of a year down under, fits in with this momentum. The book presents itself as an investigation, an itinerary, the one of a lost traveller, a seeker halfway between abandonment and lucidity, whose images will only make sense once the muffled violence of the ordinary is left behind. A sort of witness of my emotions. And even though there has been a couple of tries in the past, this book is my first one.