Printing Friends 1
” I ROAMED THE FIELDS AND WOODS AROUND SHERBROOKE
EVERY WEEKEND WITH A SMALL CAMERA – JYousuf Karsh Den kanadensiske fotografen Yousef Karsh blev världsberömd efter att ha avbildat Winston Churchill, Albert Einstein och Ernest Hemingway. Han föddes av armeniska föräldrar i nuvarande Turkiet 1908, men familjen flydde i början av första världskriget vid tiden för massakern på armenier. På sajten karsh.org berättar han om den dramatiska resan och mötet med det nya landet där han själv blev en legend. ”On the stormy New Year’s Eve of 1925, the liner Versailles reached Halifax from Beirut. After a voyage of twenty-nine days, her most excited passenger in the steerage class must have been a seventeen-year-old Armenian boy who spoke little French, and less English. I was that boy. My first glimpse of the New World on a steely cold, sunny winter day was the Halifax wharf, covered with snow. I could not yet begin to imagine the infinite promise of this new land. For the moment, it was enough to find myself safe, the massacres, torture, and heartbreak of Armenia behind me. I had no money and little schooling, but I had an uncle, my mother’s brother, who was waiting for me and recognized me from a crude family snapshot as I stepped from the gangplank. George Nakash, whom I had not seen before, sponsored me as an immigrant, guaranteed that I would not be a “public charge,” and traveled all the way from his home in Sherbrooke, Quebec, for our meeting — the first of his many great kindnesses. In the summer of 1926, I went to work for Uncle Nakash at his studio, burying my original desire to study medicine. While at first I did not realize it, everything connected with the art of photography captivated my interest and energy — it was to be not only my livelihood but my continuing passion. I roamed the fields and woods around Sherbrooke every weekend with a small camera, one of my uncle’s many gifts. I developed the pictures myself and showed them to him for criticism. I am sure they had no merit, but I was learning, and Uncle Nakash was a valuable and patient critic. My interest lay in the personalities that influenced all our lives, rather than merely in portraiture. Fostered by Garo’s teachings, I was yearning for adventure, to express myself, to experiment in photography. With all my possessions packed in two suitcases, I moved to Ottawa. In the capital of Canada, a crossroads of world travel, I hoped I would have the opportunity to photograph its leading figures and many foreign international visitors. Audrey Hepburn, 1956 In 1936, when Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the first American President to pay an official visit to Canada, came to Quebec City to confer with Lord Tweedsmuir and Prime Minister Mackenzie King, I was invited to photograph this eminent guest. The resultant photograph was not only my first foray into photojournalism, but also the occasion when I first met Prime Minister King. From then on, we were not strangers in the world of Ottawa, and he would in time become my patron and friend. It was King who made it possible for me to photograph Winston Churchill in Ottawa in December 1941. The world’s reception of that photograph — which captured public imagination as the epitome of the indomitable spirit of the British people — changed my life.” Yousuf Karsh – Biografi Yousuf Karsh föddes av armeniska föräldrar i Turkiet 1908. Hans morbror, fotografen George Nakash, tog med honom till Kanada 1925. Efter lärlingstid i Boston, slog sig Karsh ned i Ottawa 1932, innan han började sin professionella karriär. Han började fotografera dignitärer, bland dem den amerikanske presidenten Franklin Roosevelt, 1936. I december 1941 tog han porträttbilden på den trotsige Winston Churchill som senare blev symbolen för det brittiska modet och kampviljan under andra världskriget och gjorde Yosef Karsh känd. Under sin karriär belyste han mer än 150 000 negativ. Han publicerade 15 böcker med sina bilder av bland annat Albert Einstein, Ernest Hemongway, Picasso, Humphrey Bogart och Moder Teresa. Källa: Wikipedia, karsh.org 9