Bryan Schutmaat's moving series discovers the inner landscapes of ex-miners

It’s fair to say there are quite a few of these sorts of projects floating about on the internet at the moment, but something about Bryan’s technique made this one stick out a little further than the others. Delving deep into the mining communities of the American West, Bryan has captured the ageing locals and the atmosphere of the once thriving, now dilapidated towns where they reside.

Cold, white light is thrown all over raggy hillsides, beaten up mobile homes and weathered faces in what is an incredibly moving series. Bryan states that the project was inspired by the poetry of Richard Hugo and the nature of these forgotten areas: “Ultimately, this body of work ​is a ​meditation on small town life, the landscape, and more importantly, the inner landscapes of common men.”