The turning point of Philip Halsman's life

Prison life has undoubtedly changed Halsman. He tried to commit suicide several times, both physically and mentally. At that time, I didn't see the sun for five months and slept badly. More importantly, I can't communicate freely with my family. Although depressed, I persisted with my mother and sister. In order to express complex feelings, even in prison, he wrote absurd poems. Philip Halsman

1929 at retrial, the sentence was reduced to four years. By the end of 1930, Halsman was finally released because of tuberculosis. This series of blows shattered his ideals, dreams and all his plans, and his life could hardly continue in the next two years. He decided to move to Paris to live with his sister and brother-in-law to get rid of the shadow of imprisonment. But he has been occupied by nightmares and has no ability to support a family. In Paris, he tried to finish his degree as an engineer, but a few months before graduation, he realized that he was exhausted and turned to be a photographer. Although photography was in a low position at that time, he thought it was the only sustainable occupation.

At that time, the portrait photography style in Paris was popular with the combination of soft focus and hazy decoration, pursuing the creation of fantastic aesthetic colors, but lacking the charm of individuality. Halsman, who has just struggled out of the nightmare, is soberly aware that this is only a superficial phenomenon. He turned from popular style to trying to capture the true state of the spiritual world in portraits. With an engineering background, he emphasizes the accuracy of shooting and the understanding of optical performance. In his small hotel room, he tried the systematic experiment of light and the psychological effect of creating atmosphere. 1932, he is confident that he can be a pioneer in resisting the mainstream. However, he was attacked by his opponent because his portrait was "realistic and clear".

Halsman's intuition was correct and eventually made him famous. In Paris in the late 1930s, brokers began to chase him, and critics were no longer stingy in praising his genius. He began to shoot for famous magazines such as Vogue, and soon became the most sought-after portrait photographer in Paris, and he was a young success without professional training. 1937, he married his former assistant and later photographer yvonne Mercer, which also played a key role in his future success-whether in life or in artistic practice, Mercer was often his whimsical model and assistant in film exposure experiments. Halsman and Mo Ze became friends with "the generation that used Lorelei or Leica cameras", such as Cortes, Braset, Cartier-Bresson and Kappa. However, unlike Kappa's practice of witnessing world events, Halsman continued to explore the spiritual world of human beings through portraits. As he said, "I apply psychology to photography, which is more important than the process of photography itself." You can't get involved in the documentary process, and I can't be a cool bystander and witness. I want a participation. I hope to arouse each other by asking questions, make them excited, or let my object complete more interesting expression space. "His subjects started with street figures and young actors, and finally he filmed almost all the celebrities in Paris at that time.