[Original Gelatin Silver Print On-Set Photograph of Director, Cast and Extras]

[Np: The Photographer, ca. 1963].. Original glossy double-weight gelatin silver print from negative, 14 x 11" (inclusive of margins). Numbered in pencil on verso. About fine. An original print of one of the sequence of superb photographs taken by Yousuf Karsh on location in South Africa during the filming of the 1964 Diamond Films production, ZULU, directed by Cy Endfield. Karsh's invitation to join the production and photograph the cast and locale resulted in a sequence of photographs of a very high order. The present image is a stunning portrait of the preparation involved in the staging of a mass Zulu marriage ceremony. To the left of the image and continuing diagonally towards the right, the unmarried Zulu tribeswomen are lined up wearing elaborate beaded loin coverings and beaded chest adornments, in their hands short spears. They are lined up behind a string, presumably their stage marking, and the principal characters portrayed by Stanley Baker, Ulla Jacobsen, Jack Hawkins, and Michael Caine, in character and in that order, are lined up to their right. Producer and director, Cy Endfield, holding a notebook (script?), stands smiling next to Michael Caine. In the background, and surrounding the scene, are Zulu tribesmen holding spears and shields, with the village huts and stockade visible below the Drakensberg mountains. The image is identified in pencil on the verso as "No. 353" in the series. Although this project is not as widely known as Karsh's formal portraiture, examples of the resulting images have featured prominently in both museum and print retrospectives of his career.