Background
Philippe Halsman was born in 1901 in Riga, Latvia.
Philippe Halsman was born in 1901 in Riga, Latvia.
He majored in electrical engineering at the Technische Hochschule in Dresden, Germany, from ca. 1924 to 1927.
He started his career as a freelance photographer in Pans, where he lived from 1930 to 1940. He then moved to New York City, where he worked for the Black Star Agency until the end of his life. He also taught at the New School for Social Research in New York after 1971. Halsman has to his credit more than one hundred covers for Life magazine. He is also the designer of the Fairchild-Halsman camera, a 4 x 5 twin-lens reflex camera, which was never marketed but was copied by others. Frequently he requested they jump first in order to relax, fust as frequently he captured those jumps with his camera. Halsman was very innovative in flash and studio techniques and managed always to arrive at animated portrayals of his subjects.
He was the first president of ASMP in 1945 and served as their president again in 1954.
Quotes from others about the person
"His sharpness of image, careful delineation of tonal values, mastery of lighting and the revelation of both principal and contrasting textures made his technical standards legendary," stated The New York Times in his obituary.