Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2006/03/22

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Subject: [Leica] WAS: enough with Olympus NOW HCB
From: paul at paulhardycarter.com (PHC)
Date: Wed Mar 22 06:17:16 2006
References: <C045D418.E3A3%bdcolen@comcast.net> <e6cc7316df34cc5eeb2d9d570a8481ff@paulhardycarter.com> <5400-SnapperMsg4EA12C31C0470073@[70.194.119.245]>

I'm not sure that argument stands up. Here's why:

Capa was without doubt in my mind a great photographer, who developed 
enormously, and a very brave man. But he was also certainly a gambler 
with an eye to the main chance, most especially in the early days of 
his career.

This is clearly supposition, but I don't think it's impossible to 
imagine Endre Friedmann, newly re-named (as a bit of a lark) Robert 
Capa, in Spain taking pictures during a civil war in which he was 
utterly biased (as I too would have been), trying to make his mark, 
setting up a picture to help both himself and the cause.

I think this Capa is quite different to the consummate professional who 
waded ashore on Omaha.

Incidentally, I didn't mean to intimate that Capa wouldn't have known 
whether the Soldier was shot or not. Sorry if I gave that impression.

P.

*******
Paul Hardy Carter
www.paulhardycarter.com
www.digitalrailroad.net/phc
+44 (0)20 7871 7553
*******

On 22 Mar 2006, at 14:23, B. D. Colen wrote:

> Why 'worry' about it? Because, to some degree, Truth still matters.
> And by the way - a combat photographer sure as hell knows if he's just 
> shot
> a guy who's just been shot, or if he posed the guy. And IF Capa posed 
> the
> guy - and for the Xth time, I believe in the integrity of the photo, 
> that
> act calls into question the entirity of his body of work as a war
> photographer. And frankly, I think that that body of work, and the 
> risks he
> routinely took, which ultimately cost his life, are as close as we will
> ever come to "proof" that the photo is real.


Replies: Reply from bdcolen at comcast.net (B. D. Colen) ([Leica] WAS: enough with Olympus NOW HCB)
Reply from walt at waltjohnson.com (Walt Johnson) ([Leica] WAS: enough with Olympus NOW HCB)
In reply to: Message from bdcolen at comcast.net (B. D. Colen) ([Leica] WAS: enough with Olympus NOW HCB)
Message from paul at paulhardycarter.com (PHC) ([Leica] WAS: enough with Olympus NOW HCB)
Message from bdcolen at comcast.net (B. D. Colen) ([Leica] WAS: enough with Olympus NOW HCB)