Robert Capa

Robert Capa (Budapest, October 22 1913 – May 25, 1954) was a famous war photographer during the 20th century. He covered five different wars: the Spanish Civil War, the Second Sino-Japanese War, World War II across Europe, the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, and the First Indochina War. Capa documented the course of World War II in London, North Africa, Italy, the Battle of Normandy on Omaha Beach and the liberation of Paris. Capa's younger brother Cornell Capa is also a photographer.

Life

Early Life

Robert Capa was born Andrei Friedmann in Budapest in Austro-Hungary. Even though he grew up under the dictatorship of Regent Nicholas Horthy, he followed the ideas of the artist Lajos Kassák, who headed the avant garde movement in Hungary. Kassák's anti-authoritarian, anti-fascist, and pacifist beliefs heavily influenced Capa throughout his life. At age 18 Friedman was arrested by the secret police for his political activities. He was released from prison, but banished from Hungary.

Friedman originally wanted to be a writer. Moving to Berlin in 1931, he first found work in photography and grew to love the art. He worked as a darkroom assistant at Dephot (Deutscher Photodienst), which was one of the leading photo-journalist enterprises in Germany. This agency was able to create new filming techniques that allowed photographers to capture fleeting gestures and to take pictures even in poor light. With these advances the photographer could focus on human events and move away from the carefully posed rows of diplomats that had characterized news photography until then. Capa soon mastered the new cameras and was occasionally sent out on small photographic assignments. In his first major break, he was sent to Copenhagen to photography Leon Trotsky. His photos of an impassioned Trotsky addressing the crowd captured Trotsky's charismatic oratorical style.

Later Life

In 1933, he moved from Germany to France because of the rise of Nazism. There he met Gerda Pohorylles and fell in love with her. She helped him along by acting as his agent and writing text for his photographs. Taro suggested to Friedman that they could make more money for a photograph taken by a "rich American," referring to the pseudonym Robert Capa, than she could for the photographs of a poor Hungarian named Andrei Friedmann, effectively creating his new name. He chose this name because he felt it would be recognisable and familiar, as it was close to the filmmaker Frank Capra's name and sounded American. (In fact, "cápa" is a Hungarian word meaning shark.)

Capa's professional career was jumpstarted from here on out. He worked through many wars, including the Spanish Civil War, World War Two, the Israeli War of Independence, and the French Indochina War. During the French Indochina War, Capa was killed when he stepped on a land mine on May 25, 1954, at Thai-Binh.

Career

Spanish Civil War

From 1936 to 1939, he was in Spain, photographing the horrors the Spanish Civil War. In 1936, he became known across the globe for a photo he took on the Cordoba Front of a Loyalist Militiaman who had just been shot and was in the act of falling to his death. Because of his proximity to the victim and the timing of the capture, there was a long controversy about the authenticity of this photograph. Historians eventually succeeded in identifying the dead soldier as Federico Borrell García, from Alcoy (Valencia) and proved it authentic. This is the best-known picture of the Spanish civil war and it is quite obvious why; it is rare to photograph at close range the instant of someone's death in war.

World War II

At the start of World War II, Capa was in New York City. He had moved there from Paris to look for new work and to escape Nazi persecutions. The war took Capa to various parts of the European Theatre on photography assignments. He first photographed for Collier's Weekly, before switching to Life after he was fired by the former. When first hired, he was a citizen of Greater Nazi Germany, but he was also Jewish, which allowed him to negotiate visas to Europe. He was the only "enemy alien" photographer for the Allies. On October 7, 1943, Robert Capa was in Naples with Life reporter Will Lang Jr. and photographed the Naples post office bombing.

His most famous work occurred on June 6, 1944 (D-Day) when he swam ashore with the first assault wave on Omaha Beach. He was armed with two Contax II cameras mounted with 50 mm lenses and several rolls of spare film. Capa took 108 pictures in the first couple of hours of the invasion. However, a staff member at Life made a mistake in the darkroom; he set the dryer too high and melted the negatives. Only eleven frames in total were recovered.

Although 15-year-old lab assistant named Dennis Banks was responsible for the accident, an apocryphal account (which, despite being accepted as untrue , has gained widespread currency) blames Larry Burrows, who worked in the lab not as a technician but as a "tea-boy" . Life magazine printed 10 of the frames in its June 19, 1944 issue with captions that described the footage as "slightly out of focus," explaining that Capa's hands were shaking in the excitement of the moment (something which he denied) . Capa used this phrase as the title of his alternately hilarious and sad autobiographical account of the war, Slightly Out of Focus.

Magnum Photos

In 1947, Capa founded Magnum Photos with Henri Cartier-Bresson, David Seymour, Bill Vandivert and George Rodger. The results of World War Two had left the photographers scarred from what they had scene, but a curiousity to see the different ways the people had survived the conflict, as well as the rebuilding of the war torn areas of the world. The photographers decided to divide different areas according to different photographers, so as to find the most photojournalistic material that way. Capa felt that working for magazines and newspapers only allows certain kinds of photography that is limited to newsprint. He said that Magnum would allow photographers artistic freedom to get the kinds of stories and perspectives that regular news agencies did not appreciate. In an interview with with Henri Cartier Bresson, he describes Capa's ideas of photojournalism: "Capa said to me: 'Don't keep the label of a surrealist photographer. Be a photojournalist. If not you will fall into mannerism. Keep surrealism in your little heart, my dear.' " In 1951, he became the president.

First Indochina War

In the early 1950s, Capa traveled to Japan for an exhibition associated with Magnum Photos. While there, Life magazine asked him to go on assignment to Southeast Asia, where the French had been fighting for eight years in the First Indochina War. Despite the fact he had sworn not to photograph another war a few years earlier, Capa accepted and accompanied a French regiment with two other Time-Life journalists, John Mecklin and Jim Lucas. On May 25, 1954 at 2:55PM, the regiment was passing through a dangerous area under fire when Capa decided to leave his jeep and go up the road to photograph some of the advance. About five minutes later, Mecklin and Lucas heard a loud explosion. Capa had stepped on a landmine. When they arrived on the scene he was still alive, but his left leg had been blown to pieces and he had a serious wound in his chest. Mecklin screamed for a medic and Capa's body was taken to a small field hospital where he was pronounced dead on arrival. He had died with his camera in his hand.

Legacy

In 1947, Robert Capa along with colleagues founded Magnum Photos. As described by Magnum Photos, it is "...a photographic cooperative of great diversity and and distinction owned by its photographer-members." Magnum has existed for 60 years and the photographers associated with the organization are generally considered the best in their field.

In order to preserve the photographic heritage of Robert Capa and other photographers, Cornell Capa, his brother, founded the International Fund for Concerned Photography in 1966. To give this collection a permanent home he founded the International Center of Photography in New York City in 1974.

The Overseas Press Club created an award in his honor, the Robert Capa Gold Medal. It is given annually to the photographer who provides the "best published photographic reporting from abroad, requiring exceptional courage and enterprise".

Some of his World War Two shots have become famous, particularly the shots of the D-Day Invasion. The blurred shots he took during D-Day informed the look Janusz Kaminski used for Saving Private Ryan. The shots are often hailed as some of the greatest early war photography, accurately depicting soldiers in action at D-Day. Robert Capa continuously risked his life for photography and brought home some of the most detailed and in depth war pictures because of his risk. His collection spans a stunning five war period, and his pictures bring the true brutality of war home to the people who may not see it.

Major Works

• Capa, Robert. 1938. Death in the Making. New York, Convici-Friede.
• Robertson, Diana Forbes. 1941. The Battle of Waterloo Road. New York, Random House. Photographs by Robert Capa.
• Capa, Robert. 1947. Slightly Out of Focus. Modern Library. ISBN 978-0375753961.
• Capa, Robert. 1999. Heart of Spain. Aperture. ISBN 978-1931788021.
• Whealen, Richard. 2001. Robert Capa: The Definitive Collection. Phaidon Press. Photographs by Robert Capa. ISBN 978-0714844497.
• Kershaw, Alex. 2003. Blood and Champagne: The Life and Times of Robert Capa. Thomas Dunne Books. Photographs by Robert Capa. ISBN 978-0306813566.

Quotes

• "If your pictures aren't good enough, you're not close enough."

• "It's not enough to have talent, you also have to be Hungarian."

• "The truth is the best picture, the best propaganda."

• "This war is like an actress who is getting old. It is less and less photogenic and more and more dangerous." (Speaking of WWII)

• "The desire of any war photographer is to be put out of business."

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Capa, Robert. 1947. Slightly Out of Focus. Modern Library. ISBN 978-0375753961. Retrieved June 12, 2007.
• Kershaw, Alex. 2003. Blood and Champagne: The Life and Times of Robert Capa. Thomas Dunne Books. ISBN 978-0312315641. Retrieved June 12, 2007.
• Whelan, Richard. 1985. Robert Capa: A Biography. Knopf, New York. ISBN 0-394-52488-8. Retrieved June 12, 2007.

External links

• Magnum Photos
• PBS biography and analysis of Falling Soldier authenticity
• On Capa's photography "Falling Soldier" Links compiled by Tidsskriftcentret.dk
• Death of a Loyalist Soldier, Spain, 1936.
• The D-Day photographs of Robert Capa
• A biographical page regarding Capa
• Robert Capa at Magnum Photos
• Hultquist, Clayton. “Robert Capa ~ Pictures of War.”
• Photography Temple. “Photographer Robert Capa”
• VNS. May 2004. “Photographers mark Capa’s passing”.
• International Photography Hall of Fame & Museum

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