A baby elephant disappears beneath its mother's body. It is only a few weeks old, moving with a herd through the forest patches of Kaziranga National Park in Assam. For the calf, the enormous body beside it is shelter, safety and the centre of its small world. 

In another frame, the baby reaches out to touch its mother. Around them, elephants communicate through touch, trunks brushing against one another as the herd pauses to assess the strangers watching them.

For Sangita Iyer, these images are evidence of a life we often fail to see.

For more than a decade, the National Geographic Explorer, wildlife filmmaker and founding executive director of the Voice for Asian Elephants Society has trained her camera on India's elephants, in forests, in human-dominated landscapes and in captivity.

For Iyer, conservation begins with how we see the animal in the first place.

On World Photography Day, The Better India speaks with the filmmaker about a question that has shaped much of her work and invites all of us to consider: Can a photograph capture an elephant's majesty and make us care enough to help save one?

Her answer lies in the images she has taken.

The chained elephant she remembered from childhood 

Iyer's relationship with elephants began long before she became a filmmaker.

She was three years old when her grandmother took her to a temple in Palakkad, Kerala. There, she saw a bull elephant. “Magnificent”, she remembers, but chained.

What stayed with her was something she felt others around her had not noticed: the elephant's distress. 

The experience would remain with her for years.

Later, after more than two decades of working as a videographer, Iyer began documenting India's captive elephants in 2013. It was then, she says, that the camera became more than an instrument for recording. It became a formidable witness.

“I’ve been a videographer for more than 20 years, always believing that sights, sounds and images have the power to shape public perception,” she says. “But in 2013, when I began documenting India’s temple elephants, the camera became something more — a witness.”

What she encountered pushed her work in a new direction.

Iyer wanted her stories to place elephants' emotional lives at the centre, alongside their existence as an endangered species and their place in India's cultural landscape. The goal was to show what was happening to elephants and ask what the viewer could recognise in them. 

This World Elephant Day, may the world come together to protect these majestic beings, realizing that our own survival depends on that of the elephants. Let’s join hands to save their forests and prevent human induced fires. 🔥 Let’s Save Their Home! OM Ganeshaya Namah! 🐘 https://t.co/vk8FvsbVou — 🇨🇦 🐘Sangita🐘 Elephant 🐘 Iyer 🇨🇦🐘🌻 (@Sangita4eles) August 12, 2026

This World Elephant Day, may the world come together to protect these majestic beings, realizing that our own survival depends on that of the elephants. Let’s join hands to save their forests and prevent human induced fires. 🔥 Let’s Save Their Home! OM........

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