Stephen Shames: Biography

Stephen Shames creates photo essays on social issues for magazines, books, advocacy organizations, and art museums. Two of these essays, Outside the Dream and Pursuing the Dream, were published as monographs by Aperture. A third, Friends of the Children, became a film directed by Shames. His recent projects include portraits of multiracial Americans; “Lost Boys,” a compilation of work spanning four decades; street children; AIDS orphans; children affected by war; and “America Smells Like Fresh Bread,” a look at American values. In 2002, Shames founded the Outside the Dream Foundation to educate AIDS orphans, street kids, and vulnerable children in Uganda and India.

Shames’s images are in the permanent collections of the International Center of Photography, the National Portrait Gallery, the Museum of Photographic Arts, The University of California’s Bancroft Library, the San Jose Art Museum, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. He has received awards from the Kodak Crystal Eagle for Impact in Photojournalism, Leica, the International Center of Photography, and the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Foundation.