A Quote by Yousuf Karsh

Look and think before opening the shutter. The heart and mind are the true lens of the camera. — © Yousuf Karsh
Look and think before opening the shutter. The heart and mind are the true lens of the camera.
As soon as I look up, his eyes click onto my face. The breath whooshes out of my body and everything freezes for a second, as though I’m looking at him through my camera lens, zoomed in all the way, the world pausing for that tiny span of time between the opening and closing of the shutter.
I start with no preconceived idea - discovery excites me to focus - then rediscovery through the lens - final form of presentation seen on ground glass, the finished print previsioned completely in every detail of texture, movement, proportion, before exposure - the shutter's release automatically and finally fixes my conception, allowing no after manipulation - the ultimate end, the print, is but a duplication of all that I saw and felt through my camera.
The true meaning of an artist/actor is opening my heart to the audience and, at the same time, opening their heart.
The lens is the actor's best critic... showing his mind more clearly than on the stage. You can get wonderful cooperation out of the lens if you are true, but God help you if you are not.
The true meaning of an artist/actor is opening my heart to the audience and at the same time opening their heart. Through sharing my pain I can possibly heal your pain, there is no other feeling like it, money doesn't compare. This is the true meaning of Art. I will attempt to do it till my dying day.
He owned an expensive camera that required thought before you pressed the shutter, and I quickly became his favorite subject, round-faced, missing teeth, my thick bangs in need of a trim. They are still the pictures of myself I like best, for they convey that confidence of youth I no longer possess, especially in front of a camera.
Truth is first felt in the heart before the mind. Those that look for truth through the mind before the heart will never find Truth.
In drama, you're interacting with other actors to tell the story. The camera is like the theater: it's the artistic fourth wall. In a screen play, you don't look at the camera and communicate with it. But with hosting, you're looking right into the lens and talking to the people. It is a different style, and it's fascinating.
With the beginning of a great & compassionate love, comes the growth of one's heart, and with that, a profound inner change. The way to opening the mind is often first through the heart. And once is the mind & heart are open, so many things become possible.
Of course, the camera is a far more objective and trustworthy witness than a human being. We know that a Brueghel or Goya or James Ensor can have visions or hallucinations, but it is generally admitted that a camera can photograph only what is actually there, standing in the real world before its lens.
In everything I do, the aesthetics are driven by the emotion. However I can do that with a camera, whether it's a long lens or a wide lens, I'll do.
You carry that through and adapt it to a camera lens, but you're quite right, you cannot be sure of what an audience is going to do. You don't know what's going to happen to the piece you're doing anyway. You don't know how it's going to be edited. There are a lot more unknowns in cinema. But that you have to readily accept. That's when, I think, you have to forget about intellect, to a degree. Intuition is very important when you're working with a lens, I believe, for what the lens is doing, too.
Before the days of video village a director should stand right next to the camera, look with his naked eye and if he sees something that is real to him, he'd look up at the [camera] operator and if he gives the look to indicate he'd seen it to, then you print and you'd move on.
It is not easy acting and directing yourself because you have to face the camera as well as look at the scene through the lens.
I do think that what's wonderful in life is that we gain perspective as we take on different roles that are mind and heart opening.
And yet, in a superficial sense, it is true that the camera does not "lie": given a chance, it will faithfully render everything within the field of view of the lens and show it precisely as it is.
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