JUMPOLOGY by Philippe Halsman
April 11, 2008After thinking forward with the Masssagin Media Conference2 lets move back in time…
Dali Atomicus,1948, photo by Halsman
My friend told me about the famous photographer Philippe Halsman who is famous for photographing people jumping. Halsman he’d asked many famous people who posed for him for portraits to jump in front of the camera. He wanted to capture a unique portrait of a person in which one looked more “natural”, more “real” without the typical face/mask people put on in front of the camera….
Philippe Halsman also coined the term “jumpology” according to which, when people jump there is a lot to learned about their character and personality. I’m going to dig deeper into his philosophy and I’m trying to get his book “the Jump Book”, which I anticipate will be more revealing than internet.
It’s worth mentioning that Halsman had inspired many people for ever.He created a genre. I looked on flickr and other sites and I found thousands of images of people jumping just for the sake of jumping… Some pictures are realy funy.
You can find more on Halsman:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippe_Halsman
“Halsman commented, “When you ask a person to jump, his attention is mostly directed toward the act of jumping and the mask falls so that the real person appears.”
I knew the photograph of Albert Einstein but I didn’t know it was Philippe Halsman who took it. I liked it very much, as I saw it many times on a small post stamp but I’ve always thought it was kind of a “mug shot”. Once you look at the enlarged photograph you can see the real quality of it even though he was not jumping at that moment.
That’s a really cool post. I have seen that picture of Dali and the cats before but I didn’t know who took it. I like the idea that by asking someone to focus on something other then the camera, you get to picture of who the really are.
From Elaine:
Agata,
a few years ago while I was teaching at clark university a photo prof showed me a book he was working on of people jumping off of a bridge on the cape. he was trying to capture the moment when they release from the earth and accept the commitment to fall into the water from a bridge high enough to be scary. a few images are shown in his portfolio here:
http://www.stephendirado.com/jump.htm
e
Thank you for your comments.
You know I’m into jumping and I agree with Halsman, people are more “natural” when they jump.
If jumping is so “natural,” then why do we always feel a little uncomfortable in class when you make us do it? (Maybe it’s the context.)
Well, I think people look more “natural” when they jump because it’s hard to “keep up their apearance” at the same time…
I think people may feel uncomfortable in class because
- I’m filming it..
- know I will study it and play it over and over again?
- I’m going to share it with others?
There can be many individual reasons….
You tell me.