Final Report
Yousuf Karsh
Personal Background:
Yousuf Karsh was born in the ottoman empire in a city called marlin. His parents were both of Armenian descent, his father worked as a merchant. Unfortunately, he was born during the Armenian Genocide when the Ottoman government killed 1.5 million Armenians. This event was also know as the Armenian holocaust. Yousuf and his family left for Canada as refugees. However, not all of his family had this opportunity. Some of his family were murdered in the Ottoman empire. Later on, Yousuf opened his first studio in Ottawa , Canada in 1932. Throughout his career he took famous portraits of influential people. He even was described as the greatest portrait photographer in the 20th Century . He worked with many famous individuals such as Winston Churchill, Albert Einstein, and John F. Kennedy before his retirement in 1992 at the age of 83. Later he died in 2002 because of surgery complications.
Style:
As I said before Yousuf Karsh was a portrait photographer of important people. He used black and white to draw out people subtle features. He also often used dark backgrounds or backgrounds with little "noise". This was done for the focal point to only be on the people that he photographed. His pictures convey a sense of balance as the pictures look very natural.
Philosophy:
Karsh's picture all have a certain heroic aspect to them. The people all photographed were to show good in the world. He wanted to show their social standing to everyone. You can see that he really admired these people. Placing all of his sitters himself, Karsh worked with them in order to find "that residuum of greatness before one's camera".
Influence:
Karsh's philosophy on photography has made me realize that simple pictures often can have the most impact. He showed me that these picture will in a sense immortalize that person. So i need to make the picture show a good representation of the person.
Resources :
http://www.masters-of-photography.com/K/karsh/karsh_articles3.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yousuf_Karsh
https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/set?set=262&wPage=1
Compare/ Contrast
I Tried my hardest to darken the background while keeping details in the face. I noticed on Karsh's photos he was able to do that. I think the darkness and feathering is very similar. I think my pictures are different in that I'm missing the facial expressions. Because of the lack of facial expressions it really misses the mark on the grandness that the pictures are supposed to have.
Artist Statement
For these pictures I wanted to focus on just the people like Yousuf Karsh did. I used Black and White photos. I used a mask and feathering to darken the edges to make the picture seem more dramatic. I tried to make the faces much lighter to add a lot of contrast and definition in the facial features.
I Tried my hardest to darken the background while keeping details in the face. I noticed on Karsh's photos he was able to do that. I think the darkness and feathering is very similar. I think my pictures are different in that I'm missing the facial expressions. Because of the lack of facial expressions it really misses the mark on the grandness that the pictures are supposed to have.
Artist Statement
For these pictures I wanted to focus on just the people like Yousuf Karsh did. I used Black and White photos. I used a mask and feathering to darken the edges to make the picture seem more dramatic. I tried to make the faces much lighter to add a lot of contrast and definition in the facial features.