Yakov Khalip began his career in Moscow in 1921, where he studied at the State Institute of Cinematography.
After graduation, he began working as a news photographer. In 1938, on board the ice-breaker “Taymir,” Khalip photographed four shipwrecked Soviet polar explorers on the Papanin ice field. The very next day, his reportage appeared in the newspapers. During the Second World War, Khalip served at the front as correspondent for “Krasnaya Zvezhda”, from 1941 to 1944.