HUMANITAS: Images of India by Fredric Roberts

Photography from the Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego. Co-sponsored by Lehigh University Humanities Center, ArtsLehigh, and the Lehigh University Indian Society.

Fredric Roberts photographs ordinary and daily life occurrences and ceremonies, revealing the interiority of a place.  This time he is in India--Mumbai, and throughout the state of Gujarat: Chhota-Udepur, Ahmedabad, Poshina, Zainabad, Bhuj, Gondal, and Palitana.  In his portraits, the subject often looks directly at him and then to the viewer.  These photographs reveal the rapport Roberts establishes with his subjects as well as their own sense of elegance and self-possession.

HUMANITAS: Images of India tells a story of beauty and grace, work and family, spirituality and devotion, while also decoding the notion of documentation and representation.

The exhibition is the result of a five-year photographic adventure by award-winning photographer Fredric Roberts.   He began his project to document a different way of life in his travels throughout Asia.    In India he found beauty, as inherent in the photographic process, with images of grace, family, work, spirituality and devotion.  Through the combination of portraiture and landscape he presents a fascinating depiction of domestic and economic life, ranging from a touching portrait of a mother and child, to isolated monks at prayer.  The title “Humanitas” is from the Latin word meaning human virtue or human nature.

Fredric Roberts resides in Los Angeles. He received two International Photography
Awards for photojournalism/photo essay in 2003, and his book Humanitas II was featured in the New York Times Notable Books of 2007.  His photographs are in the collections of Stanford University and the Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego.