Art: Change of Scene

Canada’s Yousuf Karsh (TIME, Feb. 3, 1947) is perhaps the world’s most celebrated portrait photographer. Visitors to his exhibit of camera work at M.I.T. last week found him dabbling in what is, for Karsh, a brand new subject: alongside his famous portraits of Winston Churchill, Eleanor Roosevelt and Bernard Shaw hung an impressive series of industrial photographs done with the master’s usual flair for drama. In a steel plant and an auto factory, he had found workers posed like ballerinas around a slender ribbon of steel, had photographed paint sprayers conferring like brain surgeons, and had turned the molten metal slopping from a ladle into a flowing abstraction.

Karsh first tried his hand at industrial work two years ago when he was asked by Canada’s Atlas Steels, Ltd. to illustrate the firm’s annual report. He discovered that he had to spend two or three days planning his shots, but could never ask a worker for permission to take his picture until just a few minutes beforehand: “Otherwise they would wash up, slick down their hair, and look most unnatural.” He needed dozens of flashes for some shots; on others used only the glow of hot steel. Karsh was fascinated, went back a second time, and now plans to take a few industrial assignments each year.

Says Karsh: “It’s more of a challenge than portraiture. And it’s refreshing to deal with these workers, after all the tact you must use with the famous.”