Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2006/08/21

[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]

Subject: [Leica] Another famous photographer went
From: bd at bdcolenphoto.com (B. D. Colen)
Date: Mon Aug 21 16:52:33 2006

The Capa story, Hoppy, is that for years there were charges that Capa's
Dying Soldier was a fake, a photo he posed and then passed off as real. But
a couple years ago (?) his biographer, Richard Whalen, proved pretty
convincingly that the photo was genuine - the solider was identified, did
indeed die that day where Capa shot the photo, and Capa was also there. I'm
sure someone will 'correct' me on details, but that's the gist of the story:
Real dead soldier; real photo. Not a fake.


On 8/21/06 5:50 PM, "G Hopkinson" <hoppyman@bigpond.net.au> wrote:

> B.D. I have read the several posts with great interest, and now have the
> facts straight on this one. Importantly, as you noted, I wasn't deriding
> either Rosenthal's work nor the bona fides of the participants.
> What the posts tell me is that the image of the second flag raising rightly
> became a very powerful image in support of the just cause.
> 
> Does anyone care to contribute regarding the Capa images that I mentioned?
> I shall try to locate the reference to post for the story regarding the
> damage to his D Day images. Also, I would be interested in any comments
> regarding the Gen McArthur coming ashore reference.
> 
> Cheers
> Hoppy
>  
> -----Original Message-----
> Subject: Re: [Leica] Another famous photographer went
> 
> Of course as Rosenthal said at one point, if the famous photo had been
> "staged," he would have made damn sure that the five marines and one
> corpsman were looking at the camera, so that he could id them left to right
> and attach home towns...:-)
> 
> 
> 
> On 8/21/06 3:38 PM, "Walt Johnson" <walt@waltjohnson.com> wrote:
> 
>> I think Greg hit it right on the head and B.D. missed the boat a bit in
>> his earlier post. It's been so long since I did any marching all those
>> stories are foggy. And hell, I never marched that damned good any way. 8-)
>> 
>> Walt.
>> 
>> GREG LORENZO wrote:
>> 
>>>> hoppyman@bigpond.net.au writes:
>>>> 
>>>> Walt, regarding those particular fighting men, I seem to recall a
>>>> documentary saying that the famous photo was in fact a restaging of the
>>>> actual event, similar to Gen McArthur wading ashore more than once. I
> see no
>>>> cloned smoke clouds though!
>>>>    
>>>> 
>>> 
>>> Hoppy,
>>> 
>>> The famous photo is the second one made that day by Joe Rosenthal. The
> flag
>>> used in the original photo was deemed to be too small so a second, larger
>>> flag was obtained from an officer on a ship offshore for the 2nd iconic
>>> image. In that sense it was 'staged' but this was done to enable both the
>>> remaining Japanese and American marines fighting to secure the landing
> strip
>>> and remainder of the island to see that the US had taken Mt. Suribachi
> before
>>> they had in-fact 'secured it'.
>>> 
>>> Regards,
>>> 
>>> Greg
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Leica Users Group.
> See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information



Replies: Reply from walt at waltjohnson.com (Walt Johnson) ([Leica] Another famous photographer went)
In reply to: Message from hoppyman at bigpond.net.au (G Hopkinson) ([Leica] Another famous photographer went)