Existing comment:
Self-Portrait on Tripod
Philippe Halsman, 1906-1979
Philippe Halsman was one of many Europeans who fled the rise of Nazism in Germany; Albert Einstein, a family friend, arranged for his visa in 1940. Soon after arriving in the United States, Halsman found work with American magazines, photographing celebrities and other notables. He continued this work for over thirty years, generating more than one hundred covers for Life. Halsman was also known for his whimsical, fantastic imagination and his interest in Surrealism. In one of his series of portraits, he asked famous subjects to leap into the air, and his complex collaboration with the artist Salvador Dalí led to his famous 1948 photograph of Dalí leaping with three airborne cats alongside a splash of water. This self-portrait shows Halsman becoming his camera. His head rests atop the tripod's fixed plate, and his hand is cranking the worm gear sector that adjusts the angle of the plate for controlling and panning the camera.
1950 |