
The photograph “Dali Atomicus” ,taken by Philippe Halsman, portrays how Salvador Dali lived his life, in the moment. Salvador Dali was a very interesting man who was well known for expressing himself in his paintings. In this particular picture you can see one of his own artworks to the right of the photograph. This painting is called “Leda Atomica” which is a painting of a naked woman holding a swan. Halsman made interesting photos before the invention of picture rendering software such as Photoshop. In the picture only one item is touching the ground, the prop that is holding up the step ladder. In the background Dali is holding what seems to be a pad and a paint brush but the picture frame beside him is empty along with the easel. This could be taken as foreshadowing a new picture by Dali coming out soon. In the photograph every item is suspended in the air, three cats, Dali, a chair, a painting, water, and the easel. The wires that are holding the easel and painting up are visible. Two men can be seen in the left side of the picture, one is holding the wires up, while the other is holding the chair up in the air.  The water in the middle of the painting is in a form to where it seems like a bucket of water was thrown and then quickly pulled back making an interesting “S” shape. The photograph is black and white which gives it a high and low contrast battle. The chair is extremely dark this could either be to attempt to hide the hand holding the chair up or fight away all the white behind it. Dali seems to be the focus point of the photograph but he is in the background and is partially hidden behind the water. There is not a definite focus point of the picture because of all the contrast in the photograph. The only motif of the photograph would have to be the suspension of the objects. There are two versions of this photograph, this one, the untouched version, and another version where Halsman touched up the photo removing the prop that holds up the step ladder and the wires that hold up the easel and painting. Also the empty easel is not empty in the touched up version, it has another one of Dali’s paintings. I think that Halsman chose this photo to portray what you see versus what you don’t. If you only saw the touched up version in 1948 you would wonder how in the world they got all of these items to stay in the middle of the air, but when you saw the version showing the two men holding the items and the prop holding up the step ladder then it would all make perfect sense. This shows perspective. The two cats in the middle colliding show conflict in life. Nothing is touching in the photo besides the two cats which shows how everything can seem to flow together but there will still always be conflict in life. One cat soars above the rest resembling the higher class. If you look closely at Dali’s face he is making a very weird facial expression. This is who Dali is. Dali is an odd man and loves to live his life in that manner. 

It took Halsman and the crew 26 attempts to get this final result. Halsman was a perfectionist and that’s why his works are so famous. He had ideas for each piece of his works without telling what it is. In this particular photograph I think his main idea was a suspended way of living. Dali is a man of many traits and believes that he is above everyone else, as in everything he does or interacts with is too good for this earth. If you look at the room itself, it is a very bland room. The wall is a very light color, cannot actually tell what color it is. The base molding of the room shows the age of the room. There are chips in the paint, and even a piece of wood to fix the gap in it. The floor is hardwood flooring but has two pieces of some sort of cloth or paper. These are used when painting to catch the paint before it ruins the floor. At the top right there is some sort of balcony type thing. They used this to hold the wires for the painting below. 

Dali could not have anything normal in this picture. Dali is a very strange man and anyone could see this.  The chair on the left side of the painting has what seems to be two normal legs in the back but has two different style legs in the front. The smaller cat which is higher up than the two other cats is being hit with the water. Cats normally do not go near water unless to drink it. Instead of Dali having the water fall down from somewhere higher up which would have been easier to achieve he had a man throw a bucket of water into the middle of the room and then flee from the picture all before the time it took for the water to hit the ground. The lighting in the picture is neither natural or lights that are in the ceiling. The light is an external source posted on every side of Dali. The shadows for Dali and the easel along with the step stool and painting are all facing the right. While all of the other shadows are facing right, the balcony has two shadows, one facing left and another facing down. 
