The great thing about being a photojournalist is your camera is a ticket to go anywhere. Whether photographing the mundane or the dangerous, I try to convey pure emotion in my pictures, to get behind the scenes, to find a different angle so my pictures reveal what is beneath the surface. Having a distinct vision allows a photographer to be more poetic. While my work fits into the documentary tradition, it is also about the edges of experience, where things are more ambiguous and nonrational: the inner moments, where public events meet our private fears and hopes. This, in my opinion, is where the action is, the place of art.
Stephen Shames
