His images were carried by magazines like Life and Vogue and, in 1962, were the subject of the first single-artist exhibition of color photography at New York's Museum of Modern Art.

From 1935 to 1938, Haas attended LEH Grinzing, a private school in Vienna, where he studied art, literature, poetry, philosophy, and science.

[6] A Poet’s Camera selection of photography by Bryan Holme (1946), which combined poetry with metaphoric imagery by artists like Edward Weston, was particularly important to Haas's early development.

[8] In 1947 Haas presented his first exhibition at the American Red Cross in Vienna, where he had a part-time position teaching photography to soldiers.

In 1947, while scouting locations for a fashion shoot, Haas and Morath witnessed prisoners of war disembarking a train and began documenting their arrival.

Upon reviewing his work, Capa invited Haas to travel to Paris and join the international photographic cooperative Magnum Photos, then two years old.

[6] Describing his decision in a letter to Life editor Wilson Hicks, Haas wrote “What I want is to stay free, so that I can carry out my ideas...

By the time of Haas's arrival, the streets of New York had already become a popular subject for photographers who sought to document all aspects of life.

Wrote critic A.D. Coleman, “[Haas] was a lyric poet pursuing a photographic equivalent of gestural drawing, utilizing such photographic effects as softness of focus, selective depth of field, and overexposure to telling effect.”[8] While Haas would continue traveling for his work, he lived the rest of his life in New York City.

In 1952 Haas hitchhiked across the United States to White Sands National Monument in New Mexico, planning to photograph Native Americans.

Working with the vast area's changing light and clouds, Haas also photographed symbols, local details, and tourist oddities.

His finished photo essay, published by Life as “Land of Enchantment” in a six-page spread, was well received by readers and prompted the magazine to initiate another project.

According to writer (and early Magnum employee) Inge Bondi, Haas’ Western chronicle was the first major story he created based on his own instinct and at his own financial risk.

He frequently employed techniques like shallow depth of field, selective focus, and blurred motion to create evocative, metaphorical works.

Haas supported his adventurous personal work with commercially viable photojournalism, advertising, and motion picture stills photography.

His reputation on the rise, Haas traveled the world, photographing the U.S., Europe, South Africa, and Southeast Asia in expressionistic color.

[13] In the late 1940s, Haas switched from his medium format Rolleiflex to the smaller 35mm Leica rangefinder camera, which he used consistently for the rest of his career.

An expensive, complex process most frequently used at the time for advertising, dye transfer allowed for great control over color hue and saturation.

[citation needed]In 1962 the Museum of Modern Art in New York presented a ten-year survey of Haas's color photography.

It was realized by Steichen’s successor John Szarkowski, and consisted of about 80 prints including Haas’s motion studies and color essays.

Haas was a respected stills photographer for many films, including The Misfits, Little Big Man, Moby Dick, Hello Dolly, West Side Story, and Heaven's Gate.

[12] In addition to editorial journalism and unit stills work, Haas was also highly regarded for advertising photography, contributing groundbreaking campaigns for Volkswagen automobiles and Marlboro cigarettes, among other clients.

[18] Inspired in part by his involvement in John Huston's 1966 film The Bible, Haas conceived an ambitious, multi-year project to visualize the theme of the Earth's creation, as described in a variety of religious texts, primarily the Old Testament.

He also began work on a book devoted to Japan and a project illustrating the poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke, whose writings inspired him throughout his life.

[6] Throughout the series, Haas demonstrated what makes a successful photograph, illustrating how images can be transformed by the slightest variations of technique, perspective, or choice of tools and materials.

In 1958, Haas was listed as one of the 10 greatest photographers in the world by Popular Photography magazine, along with Ansel Adams, Richard Avedon, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Alfred Eisenstadt, Philippe Halsman, Yousuf Karsh, Gjon Mili, Irving Penn, and W. Eugene Smith.