Yousuf Karsh
Winston Churchill
History
Yousuf Karsh was one of the most famous portrait photographers at the time after WWII. He took 3 photographs of Winston Churchill after he gave a speech to the Canadian House of Commons in Ottawa. They were taken on December 30th 1941. After WWII ended one of the photographs was on the cover of LIFE magazine and is one of the most reproduced portrait images in history.
Karsh was hired to take the photographs but when he met Churchill, Churchill told him "You have two minutes. And that's it, two minutes." Churchill lit a cigar and Karsh respectfully walked up to him, took it out of his mouth, and took the first photograph. Churchill smiled and said "You may take another one... You can even make a roaring lion stand still to be photographed" as he shook Karsh's hand.
My Opinion
I personally really like this photograph. It has a lot of emotion and you can almost feel his fierceness when you look at this photograph. I wouldn't change anything about this picture. It was an in the moment photograph and couldn't be reproduced the same even if Karsh wanted to. I think Karsh captured Churchill personality very well considering the time it was taken.