Philippe Halsman's series of portraits of people jumping happened almost by accident. The photographer said he shocked himself the first time he asked a subject to jump for his camera after a particularly difficult session. Halsman spent the following six years asking every famous or important person he photographed to jump for him. The culmination of these photos was his "Jump Book," a study in the pseudo-academic subject of "jumpology." Halsman claimed that the act of jumping forced people out of their preset expressions and into photo that was more representative of their true selves-without a mask.
I selected this image because it represents a carefree moment, frozen in time. The playful nature captured in this photograph is a side of the art world that is often unseen, and a reminder to take life a little less seriously.
