Clémence de Limburg has toiled away for almost a decade on a project she safeguards in a small black box. The still photographs inside are important, but what she really protects are the subjects. At first glance you might slip and call them midgets, but Ms. de Limburg will quickly correct you.

“They prefer ‘little people.’ ”

On a subway ride in 2006, Ms. de Limburg befriended Kimm, an aspiring actress who, like some eighty percent of her peers, was born to average-sized parents with no history of dwarfism.

The encounter, and her subsequent documentation of Kimm’s daily life, spawned a project — still in progress, called “LP” — supported by the Fondation Jean-Luc Lagardère, that has taken Ms. de Limburg to communities and gatherings around the globe.

“When you meet a little person you forget after five minutes he or she is little,” said Ms. de Limburg. “They have many daily challenges, but I am more interested in their ability to overcome them.”

Subjects like Dr. Michael Ain, an orthopedic surgeon at Johns Hopkins Hospital, typify her aesthetic. When Dr. Ain set out to become a doctor, he was rejected by more than 20 medical schools; today, he is believed to be the first and only surgeon who happens to be a dwarf. Then there is Sister Pia, a missionary who emigrated from Poland to the United States at 16, propelled by visions of a better life and a career as “a spiritual caregiver.”

As she spent time among various communities in this country, Ms. de Limburg learned of an international competition known as the World Dwarf Games. Similar to the Olympics, it is held every four years in a different country and features basketball, football, track and field and swimming, among other sports.

Ms. de Limburg attended the 2009 games in Belfast, Ireland and came away with stunning photos of her subjects bench pressing twice their weight or idyllically backstroking to victory.

She also expanded her circle of subjects, and her project, to the international community. “I wondered how their lives and their integration into society varied from one country to another,” said Ms. de Limburg.

She has since spent time in Australia, at national conventions of SSPA (Short Statured People of Australia), and in Karnataka, India documenting a distance runner chasing dreams of national recognition. There was also a trip to the Kingdom of the Little People, a theme park in Kunming, China that only employs people shorter than 51 inches.

With each photograph, Ms. de Limburg makes precise choices about framing and juxtaposition to emphasize the subject’s daily lives, not their stature. “I am interested in moments that are subjective and universal,” she said, “images that are suggestive rather than demonstrative, and that open a door for dialogue.”

Ms. de Limburg started her project with a list of things she wanted to photograph: moments that most people experience over the course of their lifetimes, like a wedding. She has crossed that one off, and most others on her list. But her quest to capture the gamut does not make her easily satisfied. “There are one or two things I still would like to do,” she said.

Documenting a family is a big one. “Just because it’s part of normal life,” she reasoned. “People get married and have kids.”

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