YOUSEF KHANFAR

Yousef Khanfar is an international award-winning author, photographer, and humanitarian, whose images and messages transcend our sublime world and take us to places of splendor where we can find peace and humanity.

Yousef Khanfar is Palestinian who was born in Kuwait. At young age, he did not speak and a doctor after examination, recommended to involve him in art to express his inner feelings. His father engaged him in photography and after many months, he started to speak. Yousef said “I needed a voice to express myself and photography gave me that voice, so I made it my mission to give voice to the voiceless.”

While Yousef Khanfar was growing up in the turbulence Middle East region, he was exposed to images of war and violence. Yousef decided, “I have chosen to carry my camera and pen instead of guns, and promote peace around the world; I believe peace is a finer horse to ride than violence.”

At seventeen, he left for the United States, where he continues to reside and where he has found immense variety of charming sceneries. He distilled the beauty he saw around him with his camera and pen. Ken Whitmire, former President of the International Photography Hall of Fame and Museum, said, “Out of the Arabian Peninsula, came a lone and landless photographer who has listened to and chased the light like a predator. He has created a breath-taking and dazzling body of work.”

In 2000, his first book was published, Voices of Light, a collection of his poetic musings and fine art landscape photographs taken throughout the world. The images in this book embody the touchable and untouchable, elusiveness and mysteries of the nature world. He reminds us the importance of respecting and taking care of the environment and Mother Nature. Yousef’s photographs are at times dreamy, at times suggestive, and other times, spiritual, a journey that takes us to the intimate corners of the world. While one viewing his landscape images, Yousef leaves us with one question to contemplate, would you like to destroy this?

The prominent award-winning photographer Phil Borges said of Yousef’s photography “I often wake up in the middle of the night when everything is dark and silent. I turn on an overhead spotlight that casts a small pool of light on the images of my favorite art books. As I slowly turn the pages, if the work is true, I am transported into the emotional field of the artist. I use these midnight sojourns to travel the emotional spectrum. When I want to immerse myself in pure tranquility and view the eloquent images of a Master, I pick up the work of Yousef Khanfar.”

In 2003, Yousef was listed as one of the World’s Top Photographers by one of the most powerful organizations in London, RotoVision, among only 35 other professional photographers in the world. He received the recognition with great honor and was pleased to be selected among the elite of photography.

In 2006, his second book was published, In Search of Peace, an original body of work designed as a Visual Symphony of three movements, entitled Sublime, Freedom and Divine. In this book, Yousef aims to provoke us and lead us into dialogue and awareness of humanity and ourselves. Whether the photograph projects the conflict between earth and sky, the movements and arguments of mood, or the wreckages of souls, one always hears his symphony.

The legendary and one of the most powerful photographers of the 20th century, Gordon Parks, said about his book In Search of Peace, “Freedom, truth, justice, peace and love. Mankind should have access to any one of them. With the divine honesty of words, eyes and soul, Yousef Khanfar’s compelling work urges us to reach out and embrace all five. With a camera and a pen as weapons, he roams the corridors of hatred, evil and injustice—in an attempt to destroy them. In Search of Peace is surely a fitting title. It is also Yousef’s Symphony, one that will forever play hard and deep inside the roots of universal evil.”

In 2007 his book, In Search of Peace, was the Award winner of the 2007 IP Outstanding Book of the Year, in the Most Life-Changing category. He also was selected as artist of the year by Mont Blanc where they engraved his signature on their legendary Meisterstück 149 fountain pen, to promote literacy and education with UNICEF (U.N.) around the world.

In 2009, The Fulbright Center for Peace in Washington, DC selected his book In Search of Peace as the book of choice to be gifted in the Global Symposium of Peaceful Nations to the best peaceful Nations of the world. The book was received with great enthusiasm and excitement.

In 2011, after The State of Palestine successfully gained membership to UNESCO, The Palestine mission to the United Nations awarded and honored Yousef Khanfar for “Appreciation of your extraordinary service to promoting peace and justice in Palestine through art.”

In 2013, his third book, Invisible Eve, was published by Rizzoli, New York. The book is a harvest of women’s voices from behind prison walls to be inspiration for the next generation. Some of their messages are insightful, powerful and some painful. They needed a voice and he gave them a voice and humanized them. He asked them not to wear makeup and captured their images against seamless white background, so they can leap out of the image; leap out of whiteness. And for the first time in their lives, they felt that they are part of the solution than part of the problem.

Throughout the years, Yousef Khanfar also captured the portrait of some of the most powerful and important figures of our time including Justice Sandra Day O’Connor (The U.S. Supreme Court), Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne (House of Lords in London), Sir David Wynne (British Sculpture), Leona Mitchell (Opera Soprano), Tariq Ramadan (a Swiss academic, philosopher and writer), Sister Rosemary Nyirumbe who was nominated for the Nobel Prize (St. Monica’s Girls School, Uganda), Marina Carr (Irish writer), Antonio Grimaldi (Italian Fashion designer), the legendary Bill Toledo (Navajo Wind Talker) and many more.

Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, U.S. Supreme Court, Washington, DC., who is considered as one of the most powerful women in the history of United States, said, “I am quite stunned and overcome with the beauty of your photograph of me. Your use of light, texture and placement makes you an amazing photographer. Your book of landscapes demonstrates magnificently how well you use light. The photograph of me, which is printed now on canvas, is superb. There is no way to thank you adequately for what you have done.”

Yousef’s work has been featured in many magazines including: Oprah, International Photo Art, Amateur Photographer, Oklahoma Today, Persimmon Hill, Photo Life, Outdoor Photographer, Nature's Best, Soura, America Photo and many others. His art has been collected and exhibited in galleries, cultural centers, and museums worldwide, and some of his work is included in the permanent collection of the International Photography Hall of Fame.

Yousef Khanfar was also the Exhibit Chairman for the International Photography Hall of Fame. He established development plan, build strong relationship with major name photographers and supporters, increase attendance and built the first “Travel Exhibit”. He met personally one-on-one with every photographer who was exhibited. He motivated them to donate some of their photographs to the IPHF permanent collection. He also secured the unique travel exhibit of Peter Dombrovskis from Australia.

Yousef Khanfar personally met, negotiated and exhibited some of the most iconic photographers in history like Gordon Parks, Arnold Newman, Yousef Karsh, Ruth Bernhard, Phil Borges, Robert Glenn Ketchum, Galen Rowell, Peter Dombrovskis, Bruce Barnbaum, Philip Hyde, The Pulitzer Prize Photographs Exhibit, The Woman photographers Exhibit, and The physically disable photographers.

Yousef’s images and messages continue to seduce us, leaving us spell-bound and perpetually fascinated by the visible and invisible shadows, by the loud and quiet chaos, by the breathing and breathless light which insists that harmony exists, and that peace is an attainable possibility.