Philippe Halsman

At age 70, Philippe Halsman is recognized as a master portrait photographer. A native of Riga, Latvia. Halsman studied engineering in Germany, but gave it up for photography. He was a top fashion photographer in Paris before he came to the United States in 1940. He did his first Life magazine cover in 1942, and since then has done one hundred more as well as countless others for leading national magazines. This interview was held in Mr. Halsman's studio in New York.

FL: Where did you interest in photography originate?

HALSMAN: When I was fourteen, I discovered photography. Rummaging in my father's closet, I found a discarded 9 x 12 cm view camera. With my allowance money, I bought a dozen plates and photographed my sister near the window. I developed the plate in our bathroom by the light of a ruby-red bulb. It was one of the most magical moments of my life. In the dim red light I watched, wide-eyed, a miracle: the gradual appearance of dark outlines on the milky surface of my plate, forming the first photographic image I had taken. I became a kind of photo-amateur, from time to time taking pictures of my friends or my relatives, I was not very good and during my studies in Dresden I photographed little.

FL: You studied engineering in Dresden. How did photography become your career?

HALSMAN: My father wanted me to study medicine, but I thought that electrical engineering was the great profession of the future. After my father died, I went to Paris to continue my studies. Gradually, my slight interest in photography grew into a burning passion. Suddenly, I realized that, in spite of successfully passing all theoretical exams, I had not talent for the mechanical side of engineering. All my creative urges were stifled while I pursued my rather arid studies. At that time the social status of a photographer was not much higher than the status of a barber or waiter. My decision to change professions made my mother very unhappy. My professor of mathematics told me; "Halsman, in a few months you can have your engineering degree and you want to become photographer!" But I had made up my mind I bought myself a photoflood lamp, a used enlarger and announced to all my friends that I had become a professional photographer.

FL: Why did you choose to specialize in portraiture?

HALSMAN: All my life I was more interested in the functioning of the human psyche than in the functioning of machines. Watching the ever changing expressions of a face, I could often read the thoughts and emotions of my interlocutor. Thus, immediately the face became the main subject of my photography. I was not adverse to photographing still-lifes, street scenes or landscapes, but the capturing of an expression that reflected the essence of a human being seemed of greater import to me.

FL: How would you characterize your own images?

HALSMAN: For me, each portrait is my statement about my subject. Photographic technique makes it possible for me to make this statement not weakly or haphazardly, but with utmost force and clarity. I feel that my photograph, from the inception to the finished print, has to be conceived and controlled by me. I want my finished statement to be sharp and precise, with a three-diminsional look and full and rich range of tones from pure white to deep black. The subject must not pose but reveal himself and it must be of such psychological truth and depth that it becomes more than a document and produces the same emotion which we feel when we look at a work of art.

FL: What role did Albert Einstein have in your career?

HALSMAN: I admired Albert Einstein more than anyone I ever photographed, not only as the genius who singlehandedly had changed the foundation of modern physics but even more as a rare and idealistic human being. Personally, I owed him an immense debt of gratitude. During World War II, when the German air raids started in France, I sent my wife and daughter to the United States. Two weeks later, Paris fell and, with a million other Parisians, I was in my car on the roads of southern France. Eventually, I reached Marseilles and saw the American consul there. He informed me that I could not go to America since the Latvian quota (eighteen people per year) was filled for the next seven years. My sister and my wife visited Professor Einstein and it was through his personal intervention that my name was added to the list of writers and artists in the South of France who were given Rescue Committee's emergency visas to the United States. After my miraculous rescue I went to Princeton to thank Einstein and I remember vividly my first impression. Instead of a frail scientist I saw a deep-chested man with a resonant voice and a hearty laugh. The long hair, which in some photographs gave him the look of an old woman, framed his marvelous face with a kind of leonine mane.

FL: Where did you study photography?

HALSMAN: I never was an apprentice or assistant to another photographer. Everything that I know I learned by trial and error. I considered every assignment as a problem and my picture as its solution. I don't belong to photographers who shoot out of instinct--a lot of thinking goes into my taking or should I say making of pictures. A photograph is not only the solution of a photographic problem, it is also a statement of the photographer about his subject. The deeper the photographer, the deeper his statement. Therefore, in my opinion, the photographer should not concentrate solely on the development of his technique. Much more important is his own development as a human being.

FL: How has your way of seeing changed over the years?

HALSMAN: Certainly life matures and deepens the vision of a photographer. It took me time to realize that a photograph is not good per se, but often one has to ask: "good for what purpose?" For instance, a photograph of a smile captured at 1/250 of a second is striking and heartwarming when you see it reproduced in a magazine where you look at it for a few moments. Framed and hanging on the wall, the same smile can eventually turn into an unbearably frozen grimace.

FL: What were the major influences in your career?

HALSMAN: My training as a student of engineering was responsible for my emphasis on precise, sharp and clear photographs. My interest in psychology has made me conscious of the fact that photographic technique produced psychological overtones which could either reinforce or weaken and destroy the content which the photographer wanted to convey.

FL: Photography has undergone a tremendous popularization. As a pioneer, what effects have you noticed?

HALSMAN: I always compare photography with writing. There was a time when only a few could read and write. If one wanted to write a letter one had to go to the public scribe. Now everybody can read and write. Yet we still have professional writers, but we have then because they are artists or because they have something to say. The analogy with photography is complete. There was a time when only the professional photographer could produce photographs. Now practically everyone can photograph. Yet we will still need professional photographers who are artists or who have something to say.

FL: Do you have any regrets concerning you career?

HALSMAN: In Paris, my life was more relaxed and pleasant than here. The tempo was slower, the deadlines were less deadly. Here I learned that often you have to sacrifice your own private life in order to be successful in photography. This kind of work is nerve-racking and stressful. Periods of feverish activity alternate with periods of exhaustion and recovery. If I could relive my life, I would try to work less for others and more for myself.

FL: What do you consider to be your major contribution to photography?

HALSMAN: When I came to this country, magazine covers were mostly of famous personalities. They were either snapshots or self-consciously posed photographs. I was told very often that one could immediately recognize my photographs because in contrast to others they were not superficial but showed a kind of inner depth. It seems to me that this was my major contribution because if I look at today's covers and portraits, I see more and more photographs which are attempts to capture the character of the subject.

FL: Thank you very much.

HALSMAN: De rien.