Might as well jump

Leaping in front of the Town Hall building in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

I chose today's photo because I loved this quote, which comes from this New York Times review of "Philippe Halsman: Jump" (a photography exhibition at the Laurence Miller Gallery back home):

When the photographer Philippe Halsman said, “Jump,” no one asked how high. People simply pushed off or leapt up to the extent that physical ability and personal decorum allowed. In that airborne instant Mr. Halsman clicked the shutter. He called his method jumpology.

The idea of having people jump for the camera can seem like a gimmick, but it is telling that jumpology shares a few syllables with psychology. As Halsman, who died in 1979, said, “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.”

Indeed!

Jumping has been a bit of a theme.  Talia, my South America travel buddy from Canada, and I took dozens of pictures leaping, jumping, and generally attempting flight in front of various and sundry landmarks in Argentina and Uruguay.  I have continued Talia's tradition, and myself have been getting a bit of air across Australia, Singapore, Indonesia, Cambodia and Vietnam (!).  To that end, I'm building a Picasa web album called "Jumping around the world".  Check it out here.