Stephen Shames

I have been a photographer for almost six decades. I have travelled across five continents, witnessing tragedy and triumph. Although I have photographed a wide range of subjects, and people from many different cultures, there is a common thread running through my pictures. Much of my photography is about children in distress, with a focus on identity and family. I explore the things that tear us apart and the things that bind us together—violence and abuse, but also sensuality, love, hope, and transcendence.
What interests me is not someone’s starting point, but their journey. My journey as a photographer started during the 1960s when I was a student at the University of California at Berkeley. I got to know the leaders of the anti-Vietnam War and the Black Power movements, including Bobby Seale, co-founder of the Black Panthers, who became a mentor. Seale and the Panthers taught me how to see a community, that was not my own, from the inside.