Yousuf Karsh Quotes

To take photographs means to recognize - simultaneously and within a fraction of a second - both the fact itself and the rigorous organization of visually perceived forms that give it meaning. It is putting one's head, one's eye and one's heart on the same axis.

The longer I look at something, the more my imagination churns and I can find somewhere to put it.

I think about everything first. I think about the scenario: the story and the characters, what I'm trying to say and I'll think about that for a couple of days until it's all locked in and then when I get to an instrument it'll just fall out. But the song's kind of all ready there in my head.

It is the function of creative man to perceive and to connect the seemingly unconnected.

Things develop in front of my camera, and then I will try to do the best out of it. I am close, but in most of the scenes, I am trying not to be seen. I think that's the trick. I think it starts in your heart, goes to the head, and the head puts it into the finger.

Close your bodily eye, that you may see your picture first with the eye of the spirit. Then bring to light what you have seen in the darkness, that its effect may work back, from without to within.

Every time I get a script it's a matter of trying to know what I could do with it. I see colors, imagery. It has to have a smell. It's like falling in love. You can't give a reason why.

I really enjoy when I'm asked questions that leap from the physical world and the material world into our hearts.

I don't have any great detail or logic or exact point that I look for in a film. It's just if I get a good sense from it and I feel that there is something interesting that we may be able to do with it, then I just kind of go for it.

Art comes from a visceral need and is usually generated by something I have seen; writing comes from something that happens in my head and my heart.

You get so tied up with the minutiae of the day-to-day, there's never a chance to sit back and let your subconscious run wild.

Art is the window to man's soul. Without it, he would never be able to see beyond his immediate world; nor could the world see the man within.

I want a performance style that's more cerebral and emotional than physical. I want to be a creative artist, not a whirling dervish.

I'm really bad with answering questions. Usually, I don't even answer them. I try to find inspiration inside of the question. I think, and I jump from one beam of inspiration or energy to the next, as opposed to explaining the energy.

Whenever I am making stuff, I got a thing in the back of my mind: 'Oh, this would be so perfect for' whoever.

I've come to realize that at the end of the day, it's only you yourself that creativity comes from.

Imagination is strong in a man when that particular function of the brain which enables him to observe is roused to activity without any necessary excitement of the sense. Accordingly, we find that imagination is active just in proportion as our sense are not excited by external objects. A long period of solitude, whether in prison or in a sick room; quiet, twilight, darkness-these are the things that promote its activity; and under their influence it comes into play of itself.

It is an illusion that photos are made with the camera... they are made with the eye, heart and head.

I'm not going to be like, "I gotta get this idea out of my head." It's like, "OK, here's a clean slate, and I've got all these paints, and all these brushes, and this is what I'm going to do with it." It reveals itself, and you take a step back and say, "What's happening here? Where are we going? What does this mean? Do I need to break it open? Does it need to just be what it is? Should it end now?"

When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn't really do it, they just saw something.

I photograph continuously, often without a good idea or strong feelings. During this time the photos are nearly all poor, but I believe they develop my seeing and help later on in other photos. I do believe strongly in photography and hope by following it intuitively that when the photographs are looked at they will touch the spirit in people.

Engineering is not quite as important as imagination.

When we use our imagination properly it is our greatest friend; it goes belyond reason and is the only light that takes us everywhere.

The act of imagination is the opening of the system so that it shows new connections. Every act of act of imagination is the discovery of likenesses between two things which were thought unlike. An example is Newton’s thinking of the likeness between the thrown apple and moon sailing majestically in the sky. Hence, the ‘discovery’ of the laws of gravity.

Creativity ignited a spark. In that moment, I saw that art is not peripheral, beauty is not optional, but a strategy for survival.