"Photography is, first of all, a way of seeing. It is not seeing itself," wrote Susan Sontag. This quote explains as you can see in this photo how Philippe Halsman sees Salvador's panting and not the way the rest of us would see it. "The modern way of seeing is to see in fragments. It is felt that reality is essentially unlimited, and knowledge is open-ended. it follows that all boundaries, all unifying ideas have to be misleading, demagogic; at best, provisional; almost always, in the long run ,untrue. To see reality in the light of certain unifying ideas has the undeniable advantage of giving shape and form to our experience. But it also - so the modern way of seeing instructs us - denies the infinite it represses our energy, indeed our right,to remake what we wish to remake - our society, our selves. What is liberating, we are told, is to notice more and more" wrote Susan Sontag in Philippe's photo the laws of physics does not seem to work this photo seems to escape reality showing the creativity that there is no right or wrong answers that a pitcher can be what ever you what it to be.. Philippe was trying to mimic the style of Salvador Dali's painting of a naked lady with evil cats. That is why after seven years he asked his friend the painter Salvador Dali if he could take the photo of him. All Salvador was asked to do in the photo was to jump up in the air - the whole process had to be done 26 times until they got the shot that they wanted.
To create this photo Philippe asked his wife, who he called his first assistant, to hold up a chair to the left of the camera. Then his second and third assistant were asked to throw the cats and a bucket of water and two boards randomly beside Salvador. He changed the camera to a low shutter speed which changed the effect of the water.
When the picture Dali Atomicus was published Philippe was told off by cats lovers.
