Charlotte Piho – Bridging the gap: Human Emotions & Animal Emotions
Emotions are categorised using words such as love, happiness, pleasure, fear and vulnerability. Every photograph here is a brief of moment of stillness and connection between myself and the animal/(s) where we both replace fear with love and vulnerability. Allowing the animals ethereal beauty, emotions and personality to be felt by viewers of the photographs. My hope in photography has always been to help one connect with the animal and therefore work towards their conversation and protection of them.
Each of these photographs taken often with tears filling my mask represents some of the most life-changing and emotional times of my life. Brings tears to my eyes truly just reliving these moments in my heart and head and remembering how despite whatever I was going through at that time, they gave me a greater appetite, appreciation and love for every moment of my life. And knowing how just like that your whole life can change, often for the better.
Each photo represents a moment of deep connection, trust and love with the subject/(s). They are presented in the order they were taken. I started my career photographing single animals, intrigued and drawn to connecting with them through their eyes and breath. I’m currently pregnant so I have in more recent times found more connection with families/schools of marine life and the beautiful connection between mother humpback whales and their calves. Each of these photographs was an extremely emotional for me. I would surface often screaming with immense joy or be so struck by the beauty of what I’d seen, felt and experienced I would be lost for words.
I’ve learnt through photography that we are all the same. Humans and animals. We all have distinct personalities. And we have the same emotions love, happiness, pleasure, joy, fear and vulnerability. Through understanding this we are able to move and connect with animals and learn and grow from each other.
An intimate moment which launched my career as a photographer, where a beautiful turtle stops amidst freely swimming through the ocean and lets go of its ability to move quickly; lets go of fair and opens itself up to be vulnerable and looks at me eye to eye and appears to give me a hug. Showing it’s loving personality and soul. Balled my eyes out as I surfaced. Taken on a single breath.
On my own inward journey with my breath ( 70% of the toxins inside of your body are removed through the lungs) I have become extremely fascinated with photographing turtles breathing. It’s such a beautiful meditative moment to watch often what seems like a slow motion movie; a turtle with so much satisfaction surface to breath and then re-enter the water filled with contentment. Gives one a greater appreciation for how lucky we are to breath and live. And how such simple moments are profoundly beautiful. Life is short animals and how much joy they get from such simple things reminds us there is always something to be grateful for.
A moment in time that went viral globally. A video I shared of Aria the turtle blowing bubbles from her mouth, reached over 800million views globally worldwide across social/media channels. No one globally had ever witnessed seeing a turtle blowing bubbles from their mouth while stationed deep in the ocean. This photograph breaks boundaries between humans and animals. Showing that just like humans animals also have personalities.
I was paddleboarding. Saw this whale playing in the ocean outside of the reef, so aborted my paddleboard and jumped in with my camera. I then spent 40mins swimming freely with this beauty which continued to circulate me inquisitively. Shot on a 35mm prime lens. I was so close, trying to capture the vulnerability in its eye through my tears. No zoom used here, I felt so drawn to this whale, connected and safe. By letting go of my own fear and vulnerably the whale did the same back.
Having mainly been focused with photographing subjects eyes to feel a deeper connection, this photograph pushed me as a photographer. Where I found a deeper connection from seeing animals connect with each other. Taken on a single breath at great depths with natural light piercing through the darkness. A once in a lifetime moment where a turtle swims past a school of eagle rays. Eagle rays sit at the bottom of the ocean floor and move like lightning at any sign of a human and normally a turtle. I had to dive deeply slowly not kicking at all, but emptying my lungs to fall to the depths, as to not disturb them and allow them to swim freely and naturally.
It is very rare for a turtle to get close to a fever of eagle rays. As they move quickly away from any animal or human. Here though they surround the turtle and allow the turtle and both me to enter their space. A beautiful moment where both animals and humans let go of fear and connect.
