Portrait in Light and Shadow

Maria Tippett tells the life of Yousuf Karsh, the portrait photographer whose images of Churchill, Einstein, Hemingway, Elizabeth II and the Kennedys became widely known. Karsh fled the ethnic cleansing of Armenians in Turkey in 1916, made his home in Ottawa and Boston, and spent sixty years travelling the world to photograph politicians, monarchs, celebrities and movie stars, leaving some 50,000 portraits when he died in 2002 at the age of 94. Tippett's account is the first biography of Karsh, drawing on the Karsh archive in Ottawa and on help from his family and colleagues. It reproduces sixty of his best-known portraits and explains the technique behind his camera work.

Photographer David McCammon said it offers real insight into how a highly successful photographer worked, from the making of the famous Churchill portrait to sound business ideas.