Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2006/03/22
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Paul: Have you read the caption information used in the issue of Vu in 1936? /"With lively step, breasting the wind, clenching their rifles, they ran down the slope covered with thick stubble. Suddenly their soaring was interrupted, a bullet whistled -- a fratricidal bullet -- and their blood was drunk by their native soil." / Later, an issue of Life call it "Death in Spain" and states the subject was just killed by a machine gun bullet to the head. Go to the below listed site and just look at the various photographs. Read Whelan's statements and then ask yourself if he doesn't seem a bit less than objective. http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/database/capa_r.html An interesting aspect from the entire published take is the first group shot. Anyone who has covered a "news event" should be able to get a sense of what is going on. Are we to take it for granted this group stood up waving their rifles for the photographer and weren't hosed down by machine gun fire. Perhaps the enemy gunner felt more inclined to be sporting and go for moving targets? We have all those posed shots and yet when the damn action starts Capa gets off two frames? It seems to me your research on this issue is a bit lax. As far as your question, why worry about it now, my answer is why the hell not. If it isn't real, then it certainly is /*history*/. Should Capa have returned and said "oops, I screwed the pooch?" No, not at all. He had a marvelous career, he was a hell of a shooter and that's quite enough.( I do take issue with those who may say "shut up, it's a done deal",. Especially Cornell Capa and Whelan.) Ask B.D. how difficult it is to get the scribes at the Washington Post to really tell it like it is. I'd certainly not expect more in a era where propaganda was de rigueur for every country's media. (an pretty much still is) Walt p.s. Next, lets do this /*walking on water*/ thing. Inquiring minds should want to know. :-P PHC wrote: > I don't think it's posed either. In fact, I don't really understand > why anyone would think it was posed. If you've spent any time studying > the way people move it is obvious that this guy is falling. Whether > he's been shot or has just lost his footing is a more questionable > point - but the picture is called "Falling Soldier" not "Soldier who > has just been shot". > > I'd also point out that Capa never made any claims about the picture. > It was titled and sold by the agency and he didn't even know about it > until some weeks later. Now he could, of course, have shouted on his > return to Paris "No! It was only the guys clowning about! I'm not the > worlds greatest war photographer!" and terminated his career at that > point, and perhaps that's what some people believe he should have > done. Personally I'm very glad he didn't. > > There wasn't any misrepresentation about the picture - at worst there > was a cock-up. Capa didn't know which pictures had worked on the films > he sent to Paris. Anyone who's ever taken pictures in a shocking, > extreme, and fast moving environment like combat will know that you > don't know what you've got until you see the results [I should perhaps > point out that I've never been a combat photographer, just to save any > misunderstanding]. > > The picture editor in Paris would have looked at that shot and said > "Wow!", or perhaps "Sacre Bleu!", and started trying to sell it. They > couldn't very well check with Capa in Aragon or wherever he was before > captioning it - they would just have to make it up. They sold it, it > became famous, Capa's career was launched, and the rest is history. > Why worry about it now when we'll never know what was happening when > he pressed the shutter 70 years ago? > > P. > > ******* > Paul Hardy Carter > www.paulhardycarter.com > www.digitalrailroad.net/phc > +44 (0)20 7871 7553 > ******* > > On 21 Mar 2006, at 22:02, B. D. Colen wrote: > >> If a photo is presented as a factual representation of an event, it damn >> well better be that; if it's presented as an artistic statement, it's >> factual truth is irrelevant. The photo in question was shot by a photo >> journalist, on assignment, covering a war. It was presented as fact. >> If it >> was posed, it is not art - it is fraud. But I happen to believe that >> it is >> what it purports to be. :-) > > > > _______________________________________________ > Leica Users Group. > See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information > >