Yousuf Karsh (December 23, 1908 – July 13, 2002 was born in Madin, Armenia and became one of the world's most renowned portrait photographers. Karsh was a master in the use of studio lights. One aspect of Karsh's portrait is the emphasis on the lighting the subject's hands separately. He photographed many of the great and celebrated personalities of his generation. Journalist George Perry wrote in London's Sunday Times that "…when the famous start thinking of immortality, they call for Karsh of Ottawa."
Karsh had a gift for capturing the essence of his subject in the instant of his portrait. As Karsh wrote of his own work in Karsh Portfolio in 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. (source: Here)