Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai (left)
stands next to Karen Ballard (right)
Karen Ballard with sound blimp
on the set of “Munich.”
Ballard chats with Director Steven Spielberg
and writer Tony Kushner on the set of
Munich while in Paris.
Ms. Ballard with fist raised at
General Tommy Franks book opening in NYC,
where her photo was used as a
double spread
in his book.
Award-winning photographer Karen Ballard’s broad vision and curiosity about what's really happening in the world has led her to diverse assignments in news, portraiture, travel, and major motion pictures.
Karen accompanied General Tommy Franks as he entered Baghdad immediately after the fall of Saddam Hussein, and her classic picture of the winning general, his fist clenched and held high, ran in newspapers and magazines worldwide.
A few months later, in another journalistic coup, Ms. Ballard was inside the courtroom and took the dramatic photos of the deposed Iraqi dictator, clad in shackles and handcuffs, as he made his first appearance before the Iraqi Special Tribunal. Three years earlier that keen photographer’s eye produced an exclusive and historic photograph of a wistful President Clinton glancing over at President-elect George W. Bush talking to the defeated Vice President Al Gore moments before Bush’s inauguration. That frame won a 1st place in the White House News Photographer’s contest.
And now, in another application of her skills, Ms. Ballard has focused her 15 years of journalistic talent on . . . Hollywood movies.
Since 2005 the Washington-based Ballard has been the principal unit photographer on Munich, (dir. Steven Spielberg), The Hunting Party, (dir. Richard Shepard), Rambo IV, (dir. Sylvester Stallone), and Defiance, (dir. Ed Zwick). Her latest adventure in the screen trade will be as the unit photographer on the upcoming James Bond film, Quantum of Solace, (dir. Marc Forster), which started production in January of 2008 in London, and will also shoot in several exotic locations around the world.
The movie productions have taken Ms. Ballard to Malta, France, England, Hungary, Croatia, Thailand, and Lithuania.
Director Steven Spielberg gave Ballard her first feature film opportunity when he brought her aboard as the unit photographer for “Munich,” which earned both Spielberg and the movie Academy Award nominations. The dramatic poster from the film was a Ballard photograph.
Her initial foray as a production photographer took her to the battlefields of Afghanistan in 2002 where she was the photographer for ABC’s “Profiles from the Front Lines,” produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and Bertram Van Munster. During that assignment she was embedded with the 101st Airborne in Kandahar and camped in the desert for weeks with the troops. Ballard also spent time shooting and living at Bagram Air Base outside Kabul, and sailed in the Persian Gulf aboard the aircraft carrier USS John F. Kennedy during combat operations.
The Kentucky native’s photographic roots are in politics, news, culture, portraits, and have now spread into motion pictures. Ballard has been making insightful and award-winning pictures since her arrival into the nation’s capitol in 1994.
She shoots for a wide variety of magazines, and newspapers including Time, Newsweek, Paris Match, Stern, National Geographic Traveler, The New York Times Sunday Magazine, PARADE and The Washington Post Sunday Magazine, among other major publications.
Ms. Ballard has also been on assignment in India, Vietnam, China, and Europe. Last fall the Washington Post Sunday Magazine sent Ballard to Hong Kong for a cover story. PARADE assigned Karen a cover shoot in Indonesia to photograph the USS Mercy floating hospital ship.
Ms. Ballard has been recognized for her work by the White House News Photographer’s competition where she won the 2004 “Political Photo of the Year” as well as five first place honors. She has citations in the National Press Photographer’s (POY) Competition, and the Associated Press Awards.
In 2002 Ballard was presented with the “Rising Star” award from the Palm Beach Fotofusion Festival, which honors the most promising new photographer in the business.
Karen can be reached by email:
karen@karenballard.net