A World Within: An Intimate Portrait of the Little Bow Hutterite Colony

by George Webber

When he found out that the Little Bow Hutterite Colony in southern Alberta was to be flooded upon completion of a nearby dam, award-winning documentary photographer George Webber visited the inhabitants. He hoped they would allow him to photograph them at work and at play, before their homes disappeared forever. Over the next four years Webber witnessed and photographed, gently and unobtrusively, the daily life in the colony and finally its abandonment. They welcomed him into their barns, gardens, kitchen, dining room, school, and - ultimately - their church. This mutual respect and affection is reflected in the remarkable photographs collected in A World Within . The necessities of documentary photography are a good match for Webber's photographic methods and sensibilities. He eschews the use of flash and prefers to work only with available light. Webber's spare, unstaged compositions reflect the simple lifestyle of the colony. The speed of film he uses gives his images strong blacks and crisp whites, the grainy greys adding warmth to each image. The result is A World Within - an exquisite collection of black-and-white photographs, taken with an understanding, sensitivity, and spiritual connection that makes them exceptional. A foreword on the history of Hutterites in Canada written by University of Alberta religion scholar David Goa, and a series of excerpts from Webber's journals, provide cultural context for the images.

120 pages, Hardcover

First published March 31, 2005

Reviews

[Emmkay · Rating 4 out of 5]

What an interesting photo essay. George Webber built a relationship over a number of years with a Hutterite colony in the late 1990s and early 2000s, after the provincial government decided the colony would have to be moved to make way for a dam (resulting in the flooding of the Little Bow colony). Webber returned again and again to the colony, getting to know the people and taking striking photos of daily life. They are found in this book, along with a good introductory essay about the history and faith of the Hutterian Brethren and Webber’s own diary entries from his visits to the colony. I knew little about the Hutterites, who live ‘in common’ and are descended from colonies who migrated en masse from Russia to South Dakota in the 1870s and then again to the Canadian Prairies after the First World War.