Philippe Halsman
[Photographer, b. 1906, Riga, Latvia, d. 1979, New York.]
The immortal photographers will be straightforward photographers, those who do not rely on tricks or special techniques.
I assure you that often, before approaching the person, my heart would beat, and I would have to fight down all my inhibitions in order to address this request to my subject. At every time when the subject agreed to jump, it was for me like a kind of victory.
When my sitters were self-conscious and tense, I asked them to jump. The mask fell. They became less inhibited, more relaxed—ie, more photogenic.
In a jump the subject, in a sudden burst of energy, overcomes gravity. He cannot simultaneously control his expressions, his facial and his limb muscles. The mask falls. The real self becomes visible. One only has to snap it with the camera.
A true portrait should, today and a hundred years from today, be the testimony of how this person looked and what kind of human being he was.
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.
Most people stiffen with self-consciousness when they pose for a photograph. Lighting and fine camera equipment are useless if the photographer cannot make them drop the mask, at least for a moment, so he can capture on his film their real, undistorted personality and character.
