Karen Shacham is a photographer specializing in portraiture, conceptual, and documentary photography. Her work examines how culture and society inform individual identity, and seeks to expose a truer sense of self-expression. The trapeze series documents several acrobats in Baltimore, Md., peeling back the layers of otherness that confine the performers by merging the fantastical with the ordinary. Something that we see from far away with no personal connection can become, through portraiture, a way to study and humanize what we see as extraordinary. This selection is an example of the documentary storytelling that Shacham weaves through her work.

Shacham recently talked to us about her projects, the role societal issues plays in her work and her unique take on the significance of portraiture. This Piano Plays Itself graciously provided the soundtrack.

Shacham has shown this and other bodies of work in fine art galleries and earned a combined academic and artistic photography fellowship in 2009. She lives and works in Atlanta.

You can see more of Shacham’s work at www.karenshacham.com