The family settled in, and Yousuf continued his work. From his first days in photography, Yousuf had wanted to make portraits of interesting people. Now he began trying different sorts of challenging portrait work, some of it in factories.
The Atlas Steel Company hired Yousuf to photograph their workers in Welland, Ontario for a calendar. Atlas had manufactured metal products such as gun parts for the war. By 1950, the factories focused on stainless steel for peacetime uses.
Yousuf visited the foundry to choose the people and places for the photographs. Solange wrote down the life stories of the men, many of whom came from other countries. The photography was challenging. The foundry was a noisy, hot and dangerous place. His assistant had to protect him from flying sparks. One camera lens began to melt from the heat. Yet Yousuf was able to capture the workers on film.
As Yousuf worked, an assistant helped place the equipment, fix the lights and perform many other tasks.
Sometimes an assistant would take the place of the sitter so Yousuf could try different lighting and poses. The assistant might be standing in for the president of France or the prime minister of Canada. Usually Yousuf had a professional assistant, but sometimes a taxi driver or a passerby was talked into helping.
Karsh called this photo of an Atlas Steel worker “Lancelot”.