Capturing theEssenceof people

Karim Ramzi was born in Marrakech in 1961. Selected by King Hassan II as one of the eleven best pupils in the kingdom, he studied at the Collège Royal in Rabat, then left for Canada to study political science and mass communication at the University of Ottawa. He was already a radio man: from 1980 to 1987 he produced and hosted programmes for RTM, became its correspondent in Canada, and in 1984 covered the Los Angeles Olympic Games as a special correspondent.

He discovered photography in Ottawa and taught himself, through books and magazines, seminars and exhibitions, and a great deal of trial and error. There he met the great portraitist Yousuf Karsh several times. One day Karsh asked the young photographer to take his portrait, and photographed him in return, and Karim still calls it the best lesson he ever had in modesty, kindness and greatness.

In Ottawa he was also a journalist and presenter for Skyline Cable 12 and photo editor of the weekly The Charlatan.

He opened his first studio in New York in 1987. In 1989 he was the special-assignments photographer for the ONA group in Morocco. In Paris, Karim Ramzi Studios worked from 1998 to 2011 for magazines, books, album covers, catalogues and private clients. Over four decades he photographed fashion models, actors, musicians and artists across Europe, the Americas, the Middle East and Asia, along with members of the royal families of Morocco, Saudi Arabia and Jordan.

His favourite subjects are actors, comedians and dancers: people who are open in front of the camera and willing to be directed. With clients he takes his time, sometimes spending an hour and a half with them before a shoot, so that the photographs show who they are and not just how they pose.

From 2007 to 2015 he passed on his approach through the Karim Ramzi International Photography Workshops: immersive masterclasses for emerging and established photographers in Paris, Riyadh, Jeddah, Hong Kong and Tokyo.

In 2006, at the request of His Majesty the King, he designed and directed the national exhibition “The Revolution of the King and the People” in Rabat, marking fifty years of Moroccan independence. The following year he founded 16/9ème, le nouveau magazine du film in Rabat, a film magazine of more than 170 pages distributed in Morocco and France and associated with the Marrakech International Film Festival, along with Code Barre Productions, which organised talks, debates and screenings.

Film and music have stayed with him too: he produced and directed Pegaito for Yari Moré in Los Angeles in 2000, shot on 16mm, then Groupie Love for the Dusty Boyz in Paris in 2007. He studied screenwriting with Syd Field in London and took film workshops in Maine and Los Angeles.

From 2011 to 2018, based in Riyadh, he led photography and production projects and high-end private collaborations in Saudi Arabia.