Eye Candy from Philippe Halsman / Dalí Atomicus (The Original Shot)

Wow 11 months have passed so far this year and I have been away. Tons of work, and fun, hence my blogging tasks left abandoned. But here's a little eye candy to make up for the lost time.

Philippe Halsman (no introduction necessary) met most of the members of the Surrealist movement in Paris in the 1930's while he was living there, and since the early 1940's he started a successful collaboration with the Spanish surrealist master Salvador Dalí.

This, perhaps the most iconic result of the collaboration was shot in 1948: "Dalí Atomicus". Most people know the final/retouched print of the photograph (which was done manually also in '48 -pre Photoshop era, of course, and I suppose very painstakingly in a darkroom, with extra careful attention to detail).

So, I was stumbling upon the many photographs I used to collect for photo-educational purposes and discovered this treasure that well deserves to be shared: Dalí Atomicus: The Original Shot, (in music terms, the remastered bonus track, or in film terms the extra feature on the Blue Ray/ DVD). It shows the cables that were holding things together and a pair of hands clutching the legs of the chair on the left side. It is a very rarely seen photograph in its original form, shot most probably in 8x10 (large) format and printed as a contact sheet.

Enjoy. It's a click away.