Jumpology

Philip Halsman: Jumpology

Philip Halsman and Salvidor Dali collaborated in 1941 to create the piece of work called 'Dalí Atomicus' featuring three cats flying, a bucket of thrown water and Salvidor Dali in mid-air.

Dalí Atomicus

Halsman once stated, "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." Philip Halsman, (the photographer) developed a philosophy of jump photography, which he called jumpology.

I think that Jumpology is interesting when interpreting Moving image because it captures a moment in which you would most normally watch on screen. Also, the fact that moving image is photography in itself (each frame is a picture) for me, is really important when creating my music video. Every frame and every shot has to be positioned as if it were a photographic piece of work. It has to be visually appealing - like a piece of art. Just as if you would admire a painting in a gallery, you admire the piece of moving footage. In Philip Halsman's work, I think he captures the moving image within the still as you acquire a glimpse into the story of how they achieved the photograph. You know that everything will come down with the force of gravity, but the beautiful thing about it is it tells a story from the beginning, to how they created the photo and how it would waver after the photo was taken. Therefore, it acts as a moving image within your mind. For me, this picture is stuck forever in slow motion, it's almost as if the photographer has placed every object, person and cat in a specific way.

 

Jumpology also reminds me of Bill Viola's 'The Ascension' and how the human form was moving upwards, stagnant in mid-air, still for every second and then moving upwards again. Like Halsman, in Viola's work he uses a lot of light to signify different forms and different images within a scene. For my music video, I like the idea of capturing a moment in slow-motion and hope to do this using the water and bath scenes. I don't typically want to viewer to think "Oh, she's in a bath", I want it to be more meaningful than that, I want them to think about the composition of every frame and why it was placed there. Because like photography, moving image is about structure and planning and most of all, positioning to create the viewpoint you want.

As you can see, I have tried out my own Jumpology tests with my little sister Lottie. I have taken a couple photos of her jumping mid-air and also a couple of videos where she is jumping in slow-motion - therefore, applying the still jumping motion as shown in Philip Halsman's photograph into my film production. These small test shots have expanded my horizon in terms of slow-motion (that I could use in my video) and inspiration for maybe incorporating Jumpology within film.