Yousuf Karsh was a victim of racism and brutality, but instead of sulking over his trauma, Karsh, mentored by his photographer uncle and John H. Garo, journeyed into the world of photography to portray humanity in its most real form. Though facing adversity at a very young age, Karsh persevered, capturing many portraits of famous people including Winston Churchill, Audrey Hepburn, Albert Einstein and Nelson Mandela. Karsh received the opportunity to travel the world for these portraits and in doing so was able to experience different parts of the world; however, Karsh claims he strived to catch the “inward power” of people in his photographs, which he defined as the unveiling of “the mask we present to others and, too often, to ourselves.” This man’s story and his photographs spoke to senior Sharifa Almusaiteer and inspired her to pursue photography.

Sharifa became involved with photography five years ago after encountering Karsh’s work, and, three years later she created a personal Instagram account to showcase her passion for photography. At the beginning of her senior year, Sharifa started posting her work publicly and received quite a bit of positive feedback. Currently, she has 61,560 followers and receives thousands of likes on her pictures, sometimes even adding up to over 11,000. Sharifa said she owes some of her popularity to her captions, which usually depict funny stories about her life; however, one of the unique things about Sharifa’s account is the incorporation of her ethnicity. Her captions are in Arabic, her mother’s tongue and the language most of her followers understand. Sharifa said she tries to have her captions in both Arabic and English to appeal to more people but claims photography itself is universal in language.

“I have followers from all around the world, and even though my captions are in a different language, [my other followers] will still get the message I’m sending through my photos. I feel that photographs speak for themselves. All you need to do is get the perfect angle and perfect lighting and your photograph will do the story telling and [convey the] meaning behind it,” Sharifa said.

Sharifa stated that she mostly likes outdoor photography and portraits, but she also does sports photography and even experimented with fantasy photography for a little while. She mentioned that her little sister is the main focus in a lot of her photographs because “everyone loves her and her cute poses.” Other than her sister, Sharifa also finds inspiration in weather.

“If the weather is nice I come up with such great ideas and pictures. It’s like when the weather is nice my brain just develops these amazing ideas and it gives me inspiration to go out and do a photo-shoot,” Sharifa said.

Sharifa’s other younger sister Shaden is a sophomore at RHS and also experiments with photography. Shaden has been pursuing photography for about two and a half years now after Sharifa inspired her in eighth grade. Like Sharifa, Shaden tries to capture nature in her photographs. Shaden described her reaction to the amount of positive feedback Sharifa receives on her photographs.
“I’m proud of her. She deserved it, and I hope she gets more,” Shaden said.

Sharifa also explained why Instagram is her favorite type of social media.

“I’m usually shy around people especially at school; not a lot of people know who I am, but on Instagram it’s so much different. People know me and know my work, and so many people come to me asking for my opinion on their pictures and what they can do to make it better. I feel like Instagram helped me show who I really am, and it helped me show people my work,” Sharifa said.

Taking all of the photography classes offered at RHS including Photography, Advanced Photography and Photo Portfolio, Sharifa described how these classes and Photography teacher Paulette Colantone were beneficial to her photography.

“I learned so much from these classes that helped a lot with my photography. Ms. Colantone was always willing to help me with new ideas and equipment and pointed out what I needed to work on to get the perfect photograph,” Sharifa said.

Colantone has been teaching Photography at RHS for 29 years. She started with one Photography class and now has thirteen. Colantone described Sharifa as studious and claimed she always asks questions and is constantly trying to improve her work. She believes Sharifa has a lot of potential and elaborated on the specifics of Sharifa’s photography.

“I think she does more of a photojournalistic type of photography. She tries to capture expressions [so there is] a type of mood to the photograph. She tries to use an extra technique with her photos. She’ll look at a photo online of people and then try to capture it with her little brother, sister or another person. She tries to get a candid shot with expressions, and I think that is her best photography,” Colantone said.

Although Sharifa does not plan to pursue photography professionally, she plans to keep it as a hobby in the hopes of one day opening up her own studio. Sharifa’s Instagram handle is @Sharifa_Almu.