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Paul Couvrette:Last Photographer
Standing
Photographer Paul Couvrette
is the closest thing to a Karsh that Ottawa now has, but
he is different from those old masters in a number of
ways.He has not specialized as much as the Karsh
brothers — Yousuf (famous for his portraits) and Malak
(known primarily for his landscapes). Couvrette does
portraiture, industrial photography and landscapes. But
no photographer (especially one from Ottawa) can escape
the Karshes’ influence.
Couvrette explains:
“Sometimes, I think I’m being creative with a local
landmark or the tulip festival, only to discover that
Malak got there first, and took basically the same shot
decades ago. But I can always add my little touches to
these shots. Because of the competition and the plethora
of images out there, you have to be extremely creative
nowadays if you want to stand out from the crowd of
journeymen photographers.”
Couvrette pulled a
“Churchill” when he took his shot of Deputy Prime
Minister John Manley. “I rambled on about foreign policy
until his look went from cheerful to perturbed and then
I took the shot, which appeared in Time Canada. It
became Manley’s official picture. (Yousuf Karsh pulled a
cigar from Churchill’s mouth just before snapping the
picture, capturing a look of defiance that “made” the
shot.)
Couvrette is increasingly being recognized
as one of Canada’s top photographers. When it comes to
high-end portraits, Couvrette is the one they call. He
has photographed every Prime Minister since Pierre
Elliott Trudeau was in office. Couvrette shoots a
half-dozen high-profile weddings per year for such
clients as the Cowplands, Supreme Court Justice Beverly
McLachlin and Ottawa entrepreneur Michael
Potter.
In recent years, Time Canada has been
sending Couvrette on assignment. Time flew him to
Sudbury to shoot a scientist at the Sudbury Neutrino
Observatory, located in a cavern 2 km underground.
Couvrette recently shot very graphic black-and-white
photographs for a Time Canada investigative report on
the residential schools controversy (involving priests
who abused several generations of native children).He
photographed native leaders (some of whom were abused as
children) and federal investigators.
Besides
assignments for Time Canada, Couvrette is now also
shooting for Business Week, Newsweek, Forbes and
Reader’s Digest Canada. Conversely, feature stories
about Couvrette have appeared in several American
photography magazines.
Many of Couvrette’s former
competitors have closed their doors and left the scene.
Couvrette credits his success to a keen business sense
(he bought his own studio, rather than pay rent) and an
amiable manner that complement an artistic sensibility.
Good customer service counts for a lot, too. Some of
Couvrette’s clients go back more than 20 years.And
Couvrette takes great pains to hire the right staff.He
recently sifted through 200 applications and interviewed
10 people before hiring a new studio assistant. That’s a
whole pile of work, but it’s absolutely necessary for
the survival of a business, he
explains.
Couvrette reflects on his good fortune:
“It’s a tough business.When I started out in the
downtown core, there were a dozen major photographers
here. Today, I’m the only one left. Honest to God, it
scares me sometimes.”
Another big plus is
Couvrette’s magnificent Website [at
www.couvrette-photography.on.ca/index2.html]. Couvrette
was the first photographer in Ottawa to recognize the
Internet’s potential. “We have more people looking at my
Website every day than visiting the studio every week. I
have clients in Germany and Atlanta whom I’ve never met,
because they liked what they saw on my Website. The Web
has brought me a lot of international business and
recognition. I was recently hired by a Texas ad agency
to do Nortel’s annual report. I handled an assignment
for a German multinational, which wanted me to shoot its
pulp and paper plants in northern Quebec.Most of the
work was done over the Internet.The world has really
changed, become almost science-fiction-like.
“I
was recently flown to Toronto for a halfhour photo
session with three worldfamous lawyers who were being
feted at the Royal York Hotel. The entire top floor of
the hotel was rented for this event. So I find I’m doing
more of this kind of thing nowadays. I’m not just
photographing celebrities, though. I still do the
breadand-butter family and wedding-picturetype stuff
that pays the bills, and I enjoy doing it. I still do
lingerie and hardware catalogues, but I’m seeing more of
these peaks, if you will.The volume of high-end stuff
has just gone through the roof in recent years. I
suppose the Time Canada story on Wired Ottawa was the
watershed event that changed things for me. Shooting for
Time has been a big plus in my career. They don’t just
hire anybody.
“People ask why I don’t move to the
States or Toronto. And I always tell them that Ottawa
was good enough for Yousuf Karsh. He lived and worked
here pretty much all his life.”
Couvrette is now
in demand for international speaking engagements. He has
been asked to speak at photographers’ conferences in
France, Texas and the Caribbean.
On June 28,
Couvrette addressed the Canadian Camera Conference 2003,
presented by the Canadian Association for Photographic
Art. The event, held at the University of Ottawa, drew
some of the world’s top photographers, including Steve
McCurry, whose world-famous photo Afghan Girl graced the
cover of National Geographic in 1985. The subject of
Couvrette’s address was his work and how it relates to
the Karshes. “I’m following in their giant footsteps,”
he says. “I’ve been in touch with the Karshes’ estate
and was given permission to include in my presentation
all these Karsh images that no one else can show or
publish. I knew the Karshes quite well.Yousuf even
referred a few clients to me in his later years, when he
was scaling back his workload.”
Couvrette’s
reputation precedes him. Sometimes, he finds it hard to
believe that he is commanding all this attention from
clients who are willing to pay top dollar and fly him
across the country for his services. He pinches himself,
only to find that it isn’t all a dream. It’s
well-deserved recognition of a Canadian master
photographer who is now coming into his own.
Paul
Couvrette and some of his work: The Time CanadaMan of
the Year shot shows the pensive side of Deputy Prime
Minister John Manley. The staircase shot was done for
Ottawa Classic Stairs as part of a feature on the home
of Revlon founder Charles Revson in New York. The
cityscape was shot for Knorr Architects of Toronto, who
will play a bigpart in redesigning the Ottawa skyline.
Governor General Adrienne Clarkson was photographed on
location at Rideau Hall. On the wall behind Her
Excellency are her predecessors.
Contributor: Ottawalife Online
Edition:
July 2003
Created: 8/18/2003 5:12:09 PM
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