Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Pastimes : Photography, Digital including Point and Shoot -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bill Ulrich who wrote (81)	7/18/2002 8:48:36 PM
From: Done, gone.	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 4530

Karsh passed away this week. Environmental portraiture lost The King, rest his soul. From the Canadian Press newswire: Photographer Yousuf Karsh, who immortalized 20th century greats, dead at 93 at 22:57 on July 13, 2002, EST. OTTAWA (CP) - Photographer and raconteur Yousuf Karsh, known as Karsh of Ottawa to generations of world leaders, celebrities and cognoscenti who sought immortality through the lenses of his cameras, has died. He was 93. Karsh died at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston on Saturday, said hospital spokeswoman Jacqui Fowler. His European agent, Roger Eldridge, said Karsh died of complications following surgery. The kind of surgery wasn't disclosed. Karsh's studio in the Chateau Laurier Hotel where he once lived, just across the canal from Parliament, became a waypoint for many of the greatest names of the 20th century. And if they couldn't come to him, Karsh went to them. Kennedy, Castro, Einstein, Churchill, Mandela, Hemingway, Schweitzer, Kruschev. Presidents and prime ministers. Kings and queens. Scientists and doctors. Authors, composers and artists. The list seems endless. "He was a master of the masters," longtime Canadian photojournalist Boris Spremo said Saturday. "There won't soon be another like him." Spremo said Karsh's secret was the precise use of lighting. Karsh would work feverishly to perfect his lighting techniques so that the personality of his subject could be captured in one, sole facial expression. "When the famous start thinking of immortality, they call for Karsh of Ottawa," George Perry once wrote in London's Sunday Times. Karsh, born in Turkey on Dec. 23, 1908, left his native land to escape persecution for his Armenian heritage and came to Canada in 1924 to live with his uncle, a photographer, in Sherbrooke, Que. He dreamed of becoming a doctor but didn't have the money for medical school, so after a brief apprenticeship his uncle sent him off to Boston to study photography under eminent portraitist John H. Garo. It was there, in Boston's museums and galleries, that Karsh discovered the cultural treasures of the world and refined his understanding of light and shadow. He launched his Ottawa studio in 1932, moving to his famous digs at the Chateau Laurier in 1972. "As a capital city, I knew Ottawa would be a crossroads for statesmen coming from London and Washington," he once recalled. "I felt there would be great advantages here and I would be ready for them when they came." On Dec. 30, 1941, Karsh had one of the most famous photographic encounters in the history of the craft. British prime minister Winston Churchill had addressed the Canadian Parliament and Karsh was there to record one of the century's great leaders. "He was in no mood for portraiture and two minutes were all that he would allow me as he passed from the House of Commons chamber to an anteroom," Karsh wrote in Faces of Our Time (U of T Press, 1971), his 10th of 15 books. "Two niggardly minutes in which I must try to put on film a man who had already written or inspired a library of books, baffled all his biographers, filled the world with his fame, and me, on this occasion, with dread." Churchill marched into the room scowling, Karsh wrote, "regarding my camera as he might regard the German enemy." His expression suited Karsh perfectly, but the cigar stuck between his teeth seemed incompatible with such a solemn and formal occasion. "Instinctively, I removed the cigar. At this the Churchillian scowl deepened, the head was thrust forward belligerently, and the hand placed on the hip in an attitude of anger." The image captured Churchill and the England of the time perfectly - defiant and unconquerable. It became one of the most reproduced photographs ever taken, used on Churchill commemorative stamps in many countries, including Canada, Britain, Australia, New Zealand and the United States. There were many other memorable encounters over the years. Karsh loved people, and could hold his own with the best of them. His sessions were events in themselves and became renowned for their repartee. An engaging, intelligent personality, he had a gift for disarming his subjects, for dismantling the walls that people erect between themselves and the camera - exposing, it seemed at his best times, their very souls. "He had a great ability to get right to the heart of the matter and be able to put it into a photograph," his late brother, Malak Karsh, a renowned architectural and landscape photographer, once said of him. Karsh was polite and curious. He asked questions, elicited answers, reflections, profound moods. His sessions became known as "visits" and his subjects gave of themselves "with love and respect," said his brother. "People knew they had a master with them and they appreciated that opportunity. They gave him the opportunity to find out what he needed to know about them so he could render them in the best way possible." Combined with his mastery of light and composition, it made a formidable portraitist - a modern-day master, working most often in shades of grey. Karsh once said the fascination of greatness lies not in accomplishments or physical features, but in the essential element that created it. "I call it the 'inward power,' " he wrote in Karsh Portfolio (U of T Press, 1967). "Within every man and woman a secret is hidden, and as a photographer it is my task to reveal it if I can. "The revelation, if it comes at all, will come in a small fraction of a second with an unconscious gesture, a gleam of the eye, a brief lifting of the mask that all humans wear to conceal their innermost selves from the world. In that fleeting interval of opportunity the photographer must act or lose his prize." In September 1992, the Karsh Photographic Studio finally closed its doors to allow the master more time to pursue books and international exhibitions, which he did right up until he died. In 1997, he bid farewell to Ottawa and, along with wife Estrellita, a medical researcher, packed his bags and headed for Boston. Upon leaving, he presented a small collection of classic portraits to the Chateau Laurier, where his former home of 16 years is now known as the Karsh Suite. The recipient of 17 honorary degrees and the only Canadian named one of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century by the International Who's Who (he had photographed more than half of them), Karsh leaves behind a legacy for all the world. His work is in the permanent collections of the National Gallery of Canada, New York's Museum of Modern Art and Metropolitan Museum of Art, George Eastman House, La Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris, the National Portrait Gallery in London, the National Portrait Gallery of Australia and many others. The National Archives of Canada holds his complete collection, including negatives, prints and documents. His photographic equipment was donated to Ottawa's Museum of Science and Technology. A private funeral for family will be held in Ottawa. A memorial service will be held at a later date. STEPHEN THORNE More images: geh.org geh.org geh.org Of course for the life of me I can't find my favorite on the web. If I were home right now I'd look it up, have most of his books, but can't even remember the pianist or composer's name in the portrait. The subject is leaning on an opened grand piano, quite small in comparison to the shape of the opened piano cover which fills most of the frame. Know which one I'm thinking of? Man oh man, memory just will not cooperate today!