Yousuf Karsh and Bob Martin

Hi there Carsten, 

bless you for that ‘mention’ in your blog, I am greatly honoured. 

Now, speaking of my friend Yousef (Karsh) I have an interesting story for you, and if you’ll bear with me for a moment with this longish story, I’m sure you’ll not only ‘enjoy’ but also ‘identify’. 

When I was (luckily) appointed as the publicity stills man on the (now well-known & famous) movie, ‘Zulu’, it meant infinitely more to me than, ‘Just another job on a movie’ because I’d heard (via Stanley Baker,) that ‘Life’ Magazine had appointed my greatest ever hero, Yousef Karsh, to do the ‘Star portraits’ (Stanley Baker, Michael Caine, etc) on the movie. My job (as official stills man) was to meet him at the JHB airport on his arrival and take him and his lovely wife (Estrelita) down to the Drakensberg mountains, (300 miles by bus) to the location. 

One of the deciding factors in ‘my having got the job’ was I’d offered to pack up my entire darkroom in Johannesburg (Tanks, chemicals, enlarger, and worktops etc.,) and load it into one of their trucks, and two months before shooting commenced, I had established it, in one of the prefab huts in our little “Film village” (as it was called). Yousef, Estrelita and I became good friends during his three and a half week stay, and I also helped him build, (in another prefab hut) his ‘studio’ for his huge (8 X10 view camera) portraits of the stars. 

I had my two Rolleis mounted on an aluminium plate (side-by-side) and a trap round my neck, with a dual cable-release for the scene action stills (B&W plus negative colour in one shot). Yousef had been GIVEN TWO cameras by Rolleiflex in Canada and I arranged with the workshop to make an identical set-up for his scene stuff, which pleased him greatly! 

He had brought with him a young ‘assistant’ who was totally inexperienced and inept, at giving Yousef ideal camera settings etc. Kodak (Canada) had also given him a hundred rolls of ‘Plus X’ which, when processed in my D76, was hopelessly too ‘contrasty’ (due mainly to the harsh VERY bright South African sunlight! So, I reordered 100 rolls for him, of my “Ilford HP3” which gave super negs. Yousef was delighted (after dinner at night) to be able to ‘process his own work with me in my little darkroom, which he had not, (according to him) done for years! 

When the film ‘wrapped’, I had to return to ‘reality’ and try to ‘re-establish’ myself (and my darkroom). I had NO freelance work coming (due to having been away on the film for three MONTHS) and was not feeling very good about myself when, out of the blue, a surprise parcel arrived at the residential hotel where I was living. YOUSEF had sent me an autographed copy of his, ‘Portraits of Greatness’ all the way from Ottawa! It made my day as you can imagine. Of course I still have it, (54 years later!) and its original box wrapping! 

There you go Carsten, story over! I hope you enjoyed it mate, cheers B

P.S.I have attached my shot of him during the shoot!

Above Bob's shot of Karsh during the shoot.