The famous Ottoman-Armenian and later, diasporan writer Shahan Shahnour (Shahnour Keresthejian) also worked as a graphic artist and has dabbled for many years as a photographer. He acquired his photographic skills in Constantinople, and in 1922, after moving to Paris, went to work at Hakob Semerdjyan's well-known Phebus photo-studio as a printer and retoucher. He is known to have made photographs independently, but none of his images have yet come to light. The central hero of Shahnour's loosely autobiographical novel, ‘Retreat Without a Song’ (1929) is a photographer. One of the masterpieces of modernist prose in Armenian literature, the novel is also of great interest as an extensive and critical reflection on photography in the Armenian language.

Devoting himself completely to literature, Shahnour stopped working as a commercial photographer after the 1930s.

Vigen Galstyan, 2016