And speaking of Karsh...

[Oren Grad]

...there's a major exhibition opening at the Boston MFA on Sept. 23:

http://www.mfa.org/exhibitions/sub.asp?key=15&subkey=5726

[Mark Woods]

What a wonderful website of a GREAT large format photographer!

[john borrelli]

I am looking forward to it!

It is a nice Museum that has recently completed some major renovations, and at the risk of sounding superficial, there is a nice first floor cafe for coffee and dessert after the exhibit.

[Robert Ley]

I will second that!

Saw the Edward Hopper retrospective last year and it was a great show and it is a very nice museum.

[C. D. Keth]

I wish I could go. I spent an hour and a half on the Karsh website yesterday after seeing this post. I'll admit to not being familiar with him until then, though I saw much of his work and didn't know who to attribute it to.

[john borrelli]

Well I was fortunate to be able to check out the MFA exhibit today and I am very glad I did. I thought I would post some impressions on the Karsh exhibit, with some technical info to follow.

Wonderful Portraits and in my opinion there are wonderful qualities about the photos that will speak to any LF photographer.

Some of these portraits will be very familiar, in fact it reminded me a little of the Ansel Adams exhibit here not too long ago, given the iconic quality of both of these photographer's images. Coincidentily, there is a St. Ansel portrait here, as well as the Winston Churchill portrait, the Ernest Hemingway portrait, and on and on. Apparently, during this period(the 1940s and 50s). Karsh was the photographer of the famous and powerful.

The exhibit includes an interview of Karsh by Morley Safer. At the Adams exhibit the MFA also had a video of Adams, but they set up the video in a separate room, here it is in the exhibit room so the audio is (apparently) turned down, which is too bad.

The photos are well composed. Karsh skillfully would add some object or objects to the portrait which always added to the photograph without detracting from the person being photographed. There is a wonderful portrait of Humphrey Bogart sitting with a lit cigarette and a plume of smoke. I kept going back to this photo it was one of my favorites, something compositionally was so right on with that smoke it seemed to fill in what could have been dead space, and although there were many portraits with people holding cigarettes, here it really complimented Bogart perfectly.

The photos also have a wonderful large format analog quality about them. They are sharp in all the right places, there is a creamy quality to the out of focus areas, and nice deep blacks as well. These photos are why I lug my 4X5 around!

All of the photos were black and white except one color photograph which was a portrait of Sophia Loren.

The portraits of movie stars really worked well with Karsh's signature lighting style. There is a real theatrical quality to his lighting style. A lot of his photos seem to be like a scene from an old black and white Hollywood movie. In fact, there is a photo taken for I believe a Canadian steel company; in the foreground are two workers in a factory setting, one is holding a paint sprayer. It is a remarkable photo when you see it up close. The setting appears very demanding, yet technically it's extremely well done and there is the signature theatrical lighting even here in a factory.

Some favorite portraits included the Bogart photo mentioned above. There is a beautiful portrait of a young Audrey Hepburn, there is a nice warm tone to this one. There is a nice photo of Georgia O'Keefe that is worth seeing. She may not have had the outward appearance of Hepburn, but there is something photogenic about Georgia O'Keefe and Karsh brings this out. This portrait is more like a person in a scene, my guess is that it may have been taken in O'Keefe's home or art studio, it has a New Mexico quality if you will.

Another favorite was a portrait of George Bernard Shaw, wonderful qualities about this one as well.

There is a big enlargement of the painter Picasso, I'm guessing around 30X40 inches.

I thought I'd offer some technical info that I took notes on at the exhibit, I tried to be as accurate as possible:


Set up at the exhibit is one of Karsh's cameras. Unfortunately, I could not find any brand info on the camera, but it appeared to be a vintage 8X10 metal monorail, nothing fancy, I'm guessing, from other posts, it was a kodak brand camera.

The camera was sitting on a big metal Davis and Sanford tripod. There were two 8X10 film holders leaning against a camera box with the words "camera with 4X5 back".

The lens was easier to make out. It was a Kodak Commercial Ektar, 14 inch, f6.3 lens in a #5 synchro shutter, There was a (homemade?) lens hood perhaps taped on to the lens. It was not a fancy compendium hood, to say the least.

There were also some notes exhibited in a personal letter from the photographer about the famous Winston Churchill portrait which were interesting.

Karsh wrote that Churchill was surprised and a little upset, that he had to have a portrait taken. He gave Karsh only five minutes. Karsh made two exposures in the 5 minutes given. Here is the tech. info according to the letter on this famous image:

8X10 view camera, 14 inch Ektar F6.3 lens, Exposure 1/10 second, Aperture F 11,

8X10 Super XX Panchromatic film, Developer: Metal-Hydrokinon,

Lights: Eight No. 1 photoflood in one cabinet with tracing cloth for diffusion, one #1 photoflood for back lighting in small flexible reflector

In closing,I hope people will have the opportunity to see this exhibit and I hope this post was interesting to the forum.

[Nathan Potter]

Oren, thanks for the info. I'll be in Boston mid Nov. and will take this in.

Nate Potter, Austin TX.

[Mark Woods]

Thanks much. I'm on the left coast and can't make it.

[C. D. Keth]

I'm envious. Until the recent discussions about Karsh, I didn't know who he was. I have to say that his work has grown on me very, very quickly. I enjoy his work in small web sizes, to see proper prints must be great.

[ASRafferty]

Until the recent discussions about Karsh, I didn't know who he was.

Funny, I remember exactly the moment I learned who Karsh was. My parents had a subscription to a gorgeous magazine called "Wisdom" that was in our house the whole time we were growing up. In spite of the fact that it was officially dedicated to ideas and all kinds of fascinating people, the photography (always one of those people on the cover, always black & white there and throughout) was stunning. I have all those issues of "Wisdom" still, rescued during one of my parents' moves just for the sake of my kid-hood memories of them. I haven't looked at them since before I married a photographer, but now I must, because I still remember the cover story "Karsh on Karsh," in which he was the featured fascinating person. I really feel stupid that I don't know who the other photographers were whose work appeared in that magazine, particularly since I ought to, considering what's happened to me since the last time I looked at them.

Whattya know... turns out there's a guardian angel watching over you when you decide what to move to a new house and what to pitch... these have been with me through five moves over 25 years, and I'm going to go rediscover them now. The one with Karsh on the cover first.

[C. D. Keth]

Whattya know... turns out there's a guardian angel watching over you when you decide what to move to a new house and what to pitch... these have been with me through five moves over 25 years, and I'm going to go rediscover them now. The one with Karsh on the cover first.

Sounds like a good plan. If the article is not too long, maybe it's something you could scan to share with us?

[ASRafferty]

Sounds like a good plan. If the article is not too long, maybe it's something you could scan to share with us?

And therein lies the supreme irony. The magazine was probably 14x17, and the scanner that could handle it -- the Cezanne -- is here, but its dad isn't. I'd have to pay someone to have it scanned, or finally learn how to use the Cezanne!

:::shaking my head::: I think that's gentle chuckling I hear in the breeze.

But that's my deal... you're right that it's worth finding out if someone with the capacity to preserve that publication actually did so, and share where they can be found if I can. Film at 11 :)

[Frank Petronio]

I heard/read that after Karsh made the first "safe - normal" portrait of Churchill, he intruded into Winston's personal space and grabbed his ever present cigar away -- and the famous portrait is of Churchill's pissed-off expression.

[David A. Goldfarb]

I heard/read that after Karsh made the first "safe - normal" portrait of Churchill, he intruded into Winston's personal space and grabbed his ever present cigar away -- and the famous portrait is of Churchill's pissed-off expression.

And yet when Jill Greenberg does this kind of thing, people think it's somehow unethical.

[cowanw]

I heard/read that after Karsh made the first "safe - normal" portrait of Churchill, he intruded into Winston's personal space and grabbed his ever present cigar away -- and the famous portrait is of Churchill's pissed-off expression.

Other way around.
Churchill was irritated first then amused that the roaring lion could be tamed. The smiling photo was second. That smiling photo incidently was the photo that Churchill's family preferred
Regards
Bill

[Skorzen]

Other way around.
Churchill was irritated first then amused that the roaring lion could be tamed. The smiling photo was second. That smiling photo incidently was the photo that Churchill's family preferred
Regards
Bill

Here (http://www.karsh.org/#/the_work/portraits/winston_churchill/) is the Churchill portrait and the story told by Karsh himself.

I have to admit that I am one of those people who until these threads was ignorant of Karsh (although I did recognize some of the photos) and his work has grown on me a lot very quickly. I'll be home in October for a few days, I'm tempted to take a trip to Boston (don't know if there will be time though :()

[C. D. Keth]

And therein lies the supreme irony. The magazine was probably 14x17, and the scanner that could handle it -- the Cezanne -- is here, but its dad isn't. I'd have to pay someone to have it scanned, or finally learn how to use the Cezanne!

:::shaking my head::: I think that's gentle chuckling I hear in the breeze.

But that's my deal... you're right that it's worth finding out if someone with the capacity to preserve that publication actually did so, and share where they can be found if I can. Film at 11 :)

Oh, well don't worry about it. I didn't know it was such a large format magazine. I figured it would fit on everybody's home office scanner.

[ASRafferty]

Oh, well don't worry about it. I didn't know it was such a large format magazine.

:) That's exactly what it was! Karsh's photographs were routinely on the cover and in nearly every single issue. Below: Karsh's Einstein, Bertrand Russell, Shaw, Picasso... search "Wisdom Magazine" on eBay to see others.

[RDB Korn]

Karsh was an interesting and complex man who created a persona for his photography business. There is a very fascinating biography, called Portrait in light and shadow : the life of Yousuf Karsh by Maria Tippett. Well worth the read.