She was married to the entrepreneur Peter Pflaum, her older sister to the Nobel Prize winner Konrad Lorenz.
After her divorce, she continued her studies in the graphic arts class from 1948 to 1952 and in the early 1950s began to work increasingly in photography, initially as a commercial artist.
[1][2] Der Nachlass von Barbara Pflaum liegt in der österreichischen Bildagentur IMAGNO brandstätter images.
[3] From 1955 until her retirement in 1977, Pflaum worked as a press photographer for the weekly newspaper Wochenpresse, where she supplied pictures for the sections "Domestic", "Reportage", "Culture", "Fashion" and "Chronicle".
Pflaum is the author of several illustrated books, most of them with reference to Vienna.