O f f t h e g r i d

off the grid

Eric Valli started an amazing photo documentary project about people who’ve gone off the grid, aptly titled Off The Grid. They’ve decided that their former ways were burdensome to the planet, so they made drastic changes to the way they lived.

It’s interesting to see that he documented three varying degrees of being off the grid. You have the lone hunter in the woods, the family who appear to be Amish, and on the extreme end, a group of folks who almost look like hunter gatherers. The contrast between the three groups is pretty staggering. On the table of the hunter we see a bottle of hot sauce, so clearly he’s still seems connected with the modern world. The Amish family is almost the neutral base of the group. We all have a familiarity with how they live, generally we know they live simply, just some fruit and an unloaded gun on the table.

The extremes of the group are clearly the hunter gatherers. I mean, they look like extras from a movie about cavemen. What’s interesting though is that Valli decided to also take a photo of them in a convenience store. So how much are they off the grid? Did they buy anything? Are their packs filled with Mountain Dew and Doritos? I’ll give them the benefit of a doubt that they aren’t, but it’s interesting to think about.