From Hollywood sets to remote corners of the world, Karen Ballard freezes time with cinematic precision. An award-winning photojournalist and motion picture still photographer, Ballard is driven by a deep sense of story, approaching each frame with the curiosity of a traveler and the intimacy of a portrait artist.
Entertainment clients include Warner Bros, Universal, Sony, Paramount, Netflix, CBS Films, Amazon, The Walt Disney Company, Lionsgate, HBOMax, Apple TV, PBS, and ABC Television. Editorial clients have included Time, Newsweek, U.S. News & World Report, Paris Match, The New York Times Sunday Magazine, The Washington Post Sunday Magazine and The Los Angeles Times among others.
Prior to moving to Los Angeles, Karen was based in Washington, D.C., for 16 years, an accomplished photojournalist she covered major news stories at The White House, on Capitol Hill, the Middle East, and Haiti. In 2002 Ballard was embedded with the 101st Airborne in Kandahar, Afghanistan and the Persian Gulf for the ABC series \"Profiles from the Frontlines\" a Jerry Bruckheimer/Bertram Van Munster Production.
In the spring of 2005 Ballard’s photojournalism work and her interest in film production caught the attention of Director Steven Spielberg. He hired Karen as his unit photographer for the Academy Award nominated film \"Munich,\" and she has since worked on a number of feature films, including \"Father Stu,\" “Jack Reacher,” \"Patriots Day,\" \"Quantum of Solace,\" \"The Water Man,\" \"Defiance,\" “Rambo” and “The Expendables” to name a few. Karen shot the first HBO feature film \"Hemingway & Gellhorn\" for Director Philip Kaufman and in 2015 Ballard traveled to South Africa for Netflix for their war feature, \"The Siege of Jadotville.\" Ballard has traveled and worked in more than 50 countries around the world.
Ballard has won numerous awards over the years from professional organizations including Pictures of the Year, the White House News Photographers Association, and the Associated Press, and in 2009 Ballard was one of the principal photographers for, “Barack Obama: The Official Inaugural Book,” which included more than two dozen of her photographs including the dramatic moment when Obama took the oath of office. The Smithsonian Museum of American History opened their show, “I Do Solemnly Swear,” based on the Obama book, which featured many of her photographs, more than a million people saw the exhibition, and those photos are now in their permanent collection.
During the Pandemic of 2020, the Los Angeles based group, \"Women in Film\" honored Karen by selecting her for their social media campaign, 'For Your Consideration' featuring a series of one sheets honoring women in the motion picture industry.
In November of 2021, The Obama Swearing-In photograph opened \"The Obama Portraits Tour\" at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, LACMA, and is also housed in their permanent collection.
Karen is currently working on a photographic book about her adopted neighborhood of Venice, CA. This work was shown in a solo exhibition at the prestigious VISA POUR L'IMAGE Photo Festival in Perpignan, France from August 31-Sept 15th of 2024. A portfolio of this work was also chosen for \"PROJECTING L.A.\" a photographic project featuring work from across Los Angeles that was shown in downtown L.A. on the night of April 24, 2024 on a building 3 stories high and 80 feet wide to a crowd of over 3,000.
In February of 2025, Karen was honored with a show at the International Photo Festival XPOSURE in Sharjah, UAE, where her 20 year career in Motion Picture was featured along with a lecture, given by Ballard on the their cinema stage.
In September of 2025, the Leica Gallery of Los Angeles honored Karen with a solo exhibit of her personal project on Venice, CA. The show entitled 'Where the Light Stays' opened to a crowd of over 400 people and was shown in the gallery for two months. In the spring of 2026 the show traveled to Washington, D.C and opened at the Leica Gallery on April 9th and will stay on view until July 5th.
https://www.visapourlimage.com/en/festival/exhibitions/venice-californie
https://www.thelaproject.org/projecting-la-2024
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm2109536/
Ballard is a full time member of the Society of Motion Picture Still Photographers and a contributor to Zuma Press.
FOR PRINT INQUIRES, LICENSING, & ASSIGNMENT WORK:
EMAIL: karen@karenballard.com
**ALL WORK ON THIS SITE IS UNDER COPYRIGHT AND MAY NOT BE USED WITHOUT WRITTEN PRIOR CONSENT.
©KAREN BALLARD/2026