Art

Item Description

Laxmi is a 20 year old, playful pachyderm and her health is improving. She absolutely loves green fodder and enjoys a variety of fruits. Bijli and Phoolkali are her best friends and she loves playing with them in the open pool.

Artist statement:

"Animals are not my usual usual photographic subjects, as my first love is people, and my playground is street photography. But visiting the elephants at the Wildlife SOS Care and Conservation Center in Mathura brought out the desire to help this organization in their quest to right the wrong that has been done to these animals. We know that elephants are caring, nurturing, sentient beings with a strong sense of family. In this way they are very similar to humans, and portraying these elephants as individuals with their own personalities was my the goal with these photographs. They are our elephant sisters and brothers and they deserve all the help we can give them." 

-Barbara Huber

When Barbara Huber was eight years old, her mother, a passionate photographer, gifted her a little brownie - she has been taking pictures ever since. (Except for a stretch of about 10 years when she decided to quit photography cold turkey – but that is another story.)

In her work she documents the world around her on several levels. For one, she loves to observe human interaction. She is the person that can be found in the back of the movie theater, at the fringe of the crowd, on top of the stairs, just watching. It is a certain distance that provides the best view. This is especially true when it comes to the “condition of the human heart”. Barbara’s fascination lies not with grandiose events but the hidden lines of non-verbal communication between people that are all around. Her goal is to make them visible – a fragment of an interaction here, a gesture there, a look, a little spark… all the tiny details and little secret connections that become apparent only when photographed.

It is these “moments” she is after, the unaltered, often even unconscious, so her pictures are never staged. Any interaction between photographer and his object for the purpose of a particular photography destroys the secret of the moment. Her preference for shooting in black and white focuses the attention at what is important to her because there is some truth in photographer Ted Grant’s remark: “When you photograph people in color, you photograph their clothes. But when you photograph people in Black and White, you photograph their souls!”.

When it comes to human interaction with the environment, similarly hidden traces of communication can be found – Barbara’s background in History and Art raised her awareness to their existence. And similar to Australian Aborigines can find their way through time and place, can we use these connections to stay in touch with our own background.

To pull all of these layers of communication out into the open, to document and thereby preserve them is a driving force behind Barbara’s creativity.

You can contact Barbara at fotobhu@gmail.com with requests to see any of her other beautiful photography. 

Item Special Note