Yosuf Karsh’s work is dramatic and makes it look like no other picture. Its seems as he wanted to bring out the true character of the person who is was working with. The lighting hits the center of the face or the side of the face to bring out the person features. Karsh’s photos used the lighting to create that sense of drama and played around with the poses of the subject to bring out and make them feel comfortable to bring out a natural soft portraits.
For Nadav Kander, his work is more serious and dark in nature. he seems to take his subject and pose them the way he wants rather than letting them do their own thing. His setups are less natural than Yosuf Knader’s work. Kander uses different lighting styles rather than just one setup with the same person. Kander leaves a sense of mystery and drama with the way the the photo is taking.
I do love Kander’s portrait of Thom Yorke. he seems to use the mirror that Yorke is holding and playing with it in the photo. You see the person three different ways rather than just one direction. The use of lighting creates that drama that is always in his photos. the one i like the most from Karsh is the portrait of Grace Kelly. He does seem to want to capture her beauty which she was known for. The photo creates the sense of importance rather just her beauty speaking for her.
Your observations are very general Try to be more specific. One similarity that I notice been these two photographers is that both tend to prefer a dark background.
The Nadav Kander portrait of Thom Yorke with the mirror does show two reflections of him as well as his well lit face. The deep shadows really make it look a bit like Karsh even if Karsh would never have used a gimmick like pieces of mirror.
Karsh photographed Grace Kelly more than once. Try to make your description clear enough so that I know which one you mean. Did you mean the one with the white background and the profile view or the one with short light, a gray background with a strong background light?