Re: [Leica] Re:Capa at Omaha

[Guy Bennett <guybnt@idt.net>]

lugnut capa-ites:

for what it's worth, in his autobiographical fantasy 'slightly out of
focus,' capa does state that, in a blurb that accompanied the photos in
their original publication, the editors claimed that the photos were blurry
because the photographer was scared s***less when he took them (which is
understandable enough), and couldn't hold the camera steady.

capa refutes that, as bryan caldwell noted, explaining that the quality of
the photos was ruined in the photo dryer, where they were left too long.

guy

>I thought that this story was used to explain the poor quality of the negs
>at the time, all fuzzy and blurred. It seems to me that I read an article in
>the old American Photographer that this was a myth; the negs were fuzzy and
>blurred because untold tons of munitions were being directed at the
>photographer during the scheduled shoot. I guess the Germans were a little
>annoyed that the art director forgot to tell the right time of the session.
>Regardless of the "quality", they show us what it was like that day far
>better than any technically superior picture could.
>
>John Collier
>
>> From: "Bryan Caldwell" <bcaldwell@softcom.net>
>>
>> A great deal of the "look" of Capa's D-Day pictures comes from the fact that
>> an overzealous darkroom technician left them too long in the film dryer and
>> melted the emulsions - leaving most of them unprintable. This would have
>> happened regardless of what camera he was using.
>>