Three 'ordinary' Canadians pose in Ottawa Thursday with portaits taken of them by the late Canadian photography great Yousuf Karsh: from left, Lilly Kolton, Alia Rauf Hogben and Jack Horwitz. (Adrian Wyld/Canadian Press)

Curators working on an upcoming celebration of Canadian portrait photographer Yousuf Karsh are calling on the public for help to create their exhibition Karsh the Storyteller.

Though people around the world might be familiar with Karsh's portraits of Winston Churchill, John F. Kennedy, Albert Einstein or Pablo Picasso, "even as his fame grew, he stayed close to the people of his beloved city" of Ottawa, according to Lilly Koltun, director general of the Portrait Gallery of Canada, a program of Library and Archives Canada.

Aside from the world leaders, Hollywood sirens and other famous faces he would eventually capture with his lens over the years, Karsh continued to snap portraits of ordinary people in the capital region — soldiers, children and debutantes.

"We want to hear their stories as they may have known him, and see the portraits that he made of them," Koltun said in a statement.

It is these photos and stories that organizers are searching to add to Karsh the Storyteller, slated to run June 12 to Oct. 12, 2009.

The exhibition will be hosted by Ottawa's Canada Science and Technology Museum, which is teaming up with Library and Archives Canada for the initiative and is also the official keeper of the photographer's cameras, darkroom tools and other professional equipment.

Curators call for public submissions

Organizers are calling on Canadians with Karsh stories or images to share to post them to a new "My Karsh" Flickr group online or to contact the Portrait Gallery of Canada through Library and Archives Canada.

Karsh the Storyteller is slated to be the central event of a larger Karsh festival Ottawa will host next summer to celebrate the centennial of his birth.

An Armenian Catholic born in Turkey, Karsh arrived in Canada as a teen. He lived with and served as an apprentice to his portrait photographer uncle in Sherbrooke, Que. and studied in Boston before opening his first photography studio in Ottawa in 1932.

He held his first public exhibition at Ottawa's Chateau Laurier. He also maintained his studio in and lived at the hotel with his wife Estrellita for about two decades beginning in 1972.

Yousuf Karsh died in July 2002 in Boston, where he had moved to with his wife Estrellita about five years earlier. He was 92.

Karsh is buried at Ottawa's Notre Dame cemetery.