The stilted shepherds

In the late 1800s, a quiet man with a camera wandered the windswept plains of southwestern France. His name was Félix Arnaudin, and what he captured was a way of life already fading into memory.
Among his most haunting images were the shepherds of the Landes, perched on towering wooden stilts known as échasses. Dressed in thick wool cloaks and wide-brimmed hats, these men weren’t performers or curiosities—they were survivors of the bog. Their stilts lifted them above the wet, uneven ground, allowing them to watch their flocks and travel long distances across the sodden heather.
Through Arnaudin’s lens, these shepherds appear as tall, ghostly silhouettes on the flat horizon—figures shaped by wind, mud, and patience. Their solitude is almost sacred. Their balance, a quiet defiance against the elements.
But progress was coming. Wetlands were drained. Pine forests were planted. Roads were paved. The stilts were lowered, then lost.
Arnaudin knew what was slipping away. He devoted his life to preserving the faces, stories, and songs of his homeland. His photographs, now preserved in museums, aren’t just records—they are elegies.
Thanks to him, the stilt-walking shepherds of Gascony are not forgotten. They remain—tall and still—etched in silver and light, standing guard over a past too proud to disappear completely.
#LostTraditions #FélixArnaudin
~Old Photo Club