Yousuf Karsh lighting

[Falkenberg]

I am a great fan of his portraits and was wondering if any of You can recommend some good inspirational reading about his way of doing portraits, specially the lighting.

 

[Pinholemaster]

Simply get any of his books and look. His lighting is there for all to see.

Strong hair lights, and back side lights. Directional main light. Men had a higher lighting ratio then women, usually, but not always.

It's all there in his books.

 

[Dave Wooten]

large negs, 4 x 5 and 8 x 10, no soft fuzzies or swirlies, sharp focus, hot lights.

 

[m_allard]

That's so funny you posted this. I'm reading (well, looking at) Karsh:The Art of the Portrait right now. Sounds like he started with diffused natural light / window light, and later worked in more artificial light for better control and less restrictions. He has a certain way of highlighting subjects to give a nice texture and bring the details out from the backgound.

 

[doughowk]

His autobiography (In Search of Greatness) has some info on his techniques including lighting, I believe.

 

[realitysandwich]

There is actually a lighting pattern named after him "karsh light" which uses a strong 5th side light (in addition to the other 4 standard lights used for the other patterns)

 

[removed account4]

here's a few tid-bits on his lights
and how karsh worked

http://www.sciencetech.technomuses.ca/english/collection/karsh4.cfm


i worked for a lady - trained in the 1920s+30s who was a master.
she was known by many as "karsh of providence", and like karsh photographed
heads of state and business leaders.

she used to use hot lights with barn doors, ( key, fill, hair, and background ) and later
when bulbs were scarce, she used good olde photogenic strobes with barn doors.
she still used a key, fill, hair (on a boom) and background lights.
it wasn't too fancy, she like karsh, knew what she was doing, and
made beautiful portraits.
besides lighting, she also used a sharp lens (stopped down), large format ( 5x7 ) film
and retouched with leads on the flm
( and sometimes abraded the print adding graphite dust to hot spots ).

she was quite an artist.

john

 

[koraks]

http://www.sciencetech.technomuses.ca/english/collection/karsh4.cfm

This link is currently dead, but at the time of posting this, an archived copy can be found here: https://web.archive.org/web/2012030....technomuses.ca/english/collection/karsh4.cfm

 

[MattKing]

This is, I believe, essentially a current version of that dead link: https://ingeniumcanada.org/channel/...nality-the-karsh-of-ottawa-collection-profile