Matthew King is a travel and documentary portrait photographer whose practice spans North America, Latin America, the Middle East, North Africa, and Sub-Saharan Africa. For the better part of fifteen years he has been traveling to places where people are accustomed to being photographed as problems, or symbols, or evidence of conditions that concern someone elsewhere. He makes different photographs.

The work is built on return visits. A first trip is an introduction; what follows over months and years is where the images that actually matter become possible. King works closely with local fixers, translators, and community organizations, and his subjects participate in the process: reviewing images, shaping context, and retaining meaningful ownership of how they are seen. The results look different from photographs made quickly, with a stranger, passing through.

His most enduring projects follow people at the edges of the familiar — Waldorf school children in conflict-affected regions of the Middle East, the elite distance runners of Kenya's Rift Valley, and the Tarahumara of Mexico's Copper Canyon, among the world's most remote indigenous cultures.

He is based between Portland, Oregon and Berlin, where he is developing the European chapter of his documentary work and introducing the portrait series to gallery and editorial audiences. His fine art prints are available through his contact page..