India's Elephants offers candid images of mahouts (keepers) and the elephants with which they work. This coffee table book is organized by theme, including elephants in their natural habitat, decoratively painted and beaded for religious festivals, blessing patrons in temples, and captivating underwater photography showing elephants swimming in the ocean.
By contrast, Bonnier also captures the elephants interacting with humanity and the country's booming industrialism: performing and training in the local circus, partaking in elephant polo for sport, interacting with ogling tourists and their cameras, and working in the logging industry.
The special Limited Edition for collectors comes signed and numbered, and includes a hardcover, linen slipcase.
Annette Bonnier is a documentary photographer who traveled throughout India over a 3 year period photographing the lives of domesticated and wild elephants. She focused on a society which revels in the joyous magnificence and spiritual presence – as well as the hardships – of one amazing animal.
Bonnier's work has been published in the New York Times, Tropic Magazine (Miami Herald), and Loft Magazine, and she's participated in various gallery shows around the country.