Beginning in 2007, French photographer Pierre de Vallombreuse took on an ambitious project: Over the next five years, he would travel around the world, spending time in indigneous communities from Greenland to Borneo. Looking at daily life in eleven distinct communities, he studied how members of these communities interact with their environments in a modernizing world. The black and white works in his "Hommes Racines" ("Roots People") series, on display this month at Blue Sky Gallery in Portland, Oregon, exhibit de Vallombreuse's keen eye for detail and composition. By turns intimate and sweeping, his photographs find beauty in the quotidian across the globe. (Click to enlarge—they look much better that way.)
Pierre de Vallombreuse/Blue Sky Gallery
Cow in Rajasthan, India (2007)
Pierre de Vallombreuse/Blue Sky Gallery
Bathing in the River, Gujarat, India (2012)
Pierre de Vallombreuse/Blue Sky Gallery
Elders, Bhils village, Gujarat, India (2007)
Pierre de Vallombreuse/Blue Sky Gallery
Republic Day, La Paz, Bolivia (2007)
Pierre de Vallombreuse/Blue Sky Gallery
Evening in North Greenland (2012)
Pierre de Vallombreuse/Blue Sky Gallery
Women in late afternoon, Rabari Nomadic People, Gujarat, India (2012)
Pierre de Vallombreuse/Blue Sky Gallery
Negotiation, Rabari Nomadic People, Gujarat, India (2012)