Feature · arts
A portrait of one of many few younger, feminine truckers in France
Amélie, 23, drives a route between France and Spain twice per week. Her truck is a vital a part of her id — which photographer Yohanne Lamoulère captured on this portrait.
Amélie and Jéremy, photographed in August 2021. Amélie is without doubt one of the few feminine truck drivers in France. Credit: Yohanne Lamoulère/Forum Vies Mobiles/Tendance Floue
A younger couple embraces in entrance of the grill of a 750-horsepower Volvo truck, their cream and beige ensembles matching the industrial automobile’s slick exterior. They pose for the digital camera, her face partially obscured by the playful roundness of her pantsuit’s tulle shoulder pouf.
Amélie works for her household’s transport firm. At the time photographer Yohanne Lamoulère met her in 2019, she was driving from Arles to Castellón, Spain, and again at the least twice per week, Lamoulère defined over e mail. The busy route is round 850 miles, or roughly 1365 kilometers complete.
The firm was based by her grandfather and employs lots of her relations in numerous capacities, in addition to her former accomplice, Jérémy, pictured together with her above.
They have been newly engaged within the {photograph}, taken in August 2021, however have since ended their relationship.
A way of drive
Lamoulère’s work typically explores life on the outskirts of main French cities, and the aspirations of the individuals who dwell there. The photographer, whose uncle can be a trucker, met Amélie at a truck present in southeastern France the place drivers enhance their autos for a contest. She was drawn to the youthful woman’s sense of dedication and drive. Amélie had left her cosmetology research to pursue a profession in trucking, following in her father and grandfather’s footsteps.
“Amélie is a very organized girl. When I met her, she was only 20 years old and already described her life in a very planned, constructed way,” Lamoulère stated. “She is also wildly free-spirited and very amusing.”
Though Lamoulère photographed Amélie’s life at numerous factors over a interval of two years, this snap was significantly momentous: During her sister Lucie’s farmhouse marriage ceremony — with an all-white costume code and the household vehicles included within the marriage ceremony procession — Jérémy and Lucie conspired to shock Amélie: in lieu of the standard bouquet toss, Lucie handed it on to Amélie, and Jérémy proposed.
Lamoulère then shot her portrait of the newly-engaged couple in entrance of Amélie’s truck, the bouquet positioned on the dashboard above their heads.
The picture is a part of the collection, “Les Vies qu’on mène,” or “The Lives We Lead,” by the French images collective Tendance Floue. The physique of labor, about every day life round France, has been made into each a e book of the identical title and an exhibition in Paris at Cité Internationale des Arts. It was additionally proven on the worldwide images truthful Paris Photo within the fall.
Though the couple is not collectively, Lamoulère loves the portrait for its emotional resonance, in addition to for its embodiment of Amélie’s unbiased spirit. She stated it is uncommon to see a younger lady “aboard monsters like Amélie’s truck” and finds it “very beautiful” to see her forge her personal path. For the trucking business to outlive, extra folks like Amélie might want to fill the drivers’ seats.