Baar Photographer Pit Buehler puts people in the limelight - and doesn't take only celebrities in front of his lens. Idealist, adventurer, philanthropist - photographer Pit Buehler from Baar is just 40 years old, but he seems to have already had half the world in front of his camera. If you leaf through his portfolios, you can look into the face of the thoughtfully smiling Susan Sarandon, the cheekily grinning Moritz Bleibtreu, the charming Nadja Schildknecht, an enchantingly beautiful Heather Graham.

But you also find yourself face to face with three southern Ethiopian girls from the Mursi tribe, made up and adorned according to their tribal rituals. Five little girls from the Amazon region smile at you - one sincere, the other cheeky, the next flirtatious. Six Ethiopian shepherd boys look down at you - curious, fascinated, critical, self-confident. Nothing seems to stand in the way of getting to know stand. Between art and journalism Nothing seems to stand between these children and the photographer, nothing between him and the southern Ethiopian farmer driving his two oxen across the field, or the old woman in Calcutta holding her grandchild on her lap, a caregiver in misery. "If the picture is not good enough, you were not close enough." Pit Buehler quotes the famous photographer Robert Capa. And says of himself: "For me, a photograph is a confrontation with people and the world. A good picture is worth more to me than the money I might earn from it." The Baar native wants to create photos that "fascinate and make people think". Photos "between art and journalism". "Anything is possible" Of course, it helps him to like people. "Like people and let them know it," explains the 40-year-old.

People's appreciation opens the door. And Pit Buehler travels the world to achieve this. He has already set foot on the ground in over 90 countries; he himself estimates that in the past twenty years together, he has only been on the road for around three years. And if he now travels to take photographs, it was originally his trips around the world that brought him to photography. It all started with a trip to the USA, which he undertook at the age of twenty to learn English. Pit Buehler bought an old police car and drove alone from Miami to San Francisco. "That was a game changer," he says today, "an adventure. I realized: anything is possible, anything is doable." Studying in Leipzig

A few years later, he was on the Amazon, 2000 kilometers, from Peru to Brazil - together with a colleague and again and again with locals. Helfried Strauss, Professor of Photography in Leipzig, became aware of the Baar native through the photos from this trip and invited him to join his master class at the Leipzig Academy of Art for a year. By then, Pit Buehler already had a degree in economics, finance and international management in his pocket - obtained at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts. The years of work in the financial sector that followed this degree helped him to realize his numerous trips. And even today, the blonde adventurer not only works as a freelance photographer, but also works part-time for the canton of Zug. At the moment, Pit Buehler, who has already been represented at photo exhibitions worldwide and won several prizes in this context (such as the CGAP Photo Award, Washington, or the International Special Merit Prize, Cologne, Photokina 2012), is looking forward to "Photo 13", which takes place in Zurich from January 4 to 8. It is the largest photography exhibition in Switzerland, where he will be represented with his humanist photographs, but also with portraits and shots from the world of fashion. A contrast. "I'm not a do-gooder," explains the cosmopolitan, who also came to this realization on his travels: "If you take laughter as a yardstick, many children in the Third World are not unhappier - they just live differently." A portrait in words And how would Pit Buehler portray himself - in words? "I have a partner, a young daughter and my passion is photography," he says calmly. "I'm analytical by profession, but I'm also curious and open-minded. I don't really like boundaries and rules. I have enough humor not to take everything so seriously."