Sunday, July 3, 2011

Robert Capa

 
Robert Capa (born Endre Ernő Friedmann 1913 -1954) was a Hungarian combat photographer and photojournalist; On June 6, 1944 (D-Day) he swam ashore with the second assault wave on Omaha Beach, but instead of guns and weapons he was armed with two Contax II cameras mounted with 50 mm lenses and several rolls of spare film. Thanks to him we have today one the most real and intense war reportage of all times. There are different explanations about why his photos are so blurred, the official story is that most of his photos appears out of focus because a darkroom assistant in London, when processing Capa's images, had used too much heat and the emulsions melted.  Because of that error, of the 106 photographs Capa took that day only eleven survived. Someone says (and Capa himself) that it’s a stylistic choice, since the out of focus best represents how those moments were lived by the american soldiers; That is also why he decided to call his book “Slightly Out of Focus”. Someone else explain that Robert Capa's hands were badly shaking in the excitement of the moment (something which he denied). This is one of these cases were reality mixes up with legend, and we probably won’t ever know the truth about this, but what we surely know is how important his photos are, as historical documents and as photographic and artistic works. Director Steven Spielberg used Capa's photos to depict his WWII scenario in "Saving Private Ryan". More in the next page.






38 comments:

  1. Interesting post, thank you!
    Have a good day.

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  2. I was gonna say it looked just like Saving Private Ryan.

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  3. Wow, must have been scary taking those pictures.

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  4. I love the blur going on.

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  5. you must have been scared while shooting these pics.
    Way to go!
    +1

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  6. Whoa those are some breath taking photographs :O

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  7. Nice. That assistant should be tarred and feathered.

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  8. and yet i still think that sadly, wars are needed

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  9. If you like war journalist photographers, you should check out the bang bang club, there's loads of them.

    It's a shame if the darkroom assistant did mess up the pictures =(

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  10. this is stuff of legend. we owe it all to the men and women who serve

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  11. What a great photographer, risking his life and all.

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  12. Slightly out of focus... that's a great title :)

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  13. Nice info and those photos are very precious historical stuffs.

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  14. great photos, he really had some courage to be able to do that

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  15. Wow that is totally amazing. I really have an interest for that stuff and I'm really surprised he survived the assault.

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  16. this is truly one hell of a blog!
    really interesting stuff and great photos!
    +1 and thnx again!

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  17. Woow, some amazing photos. I love everything about WWII.

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  18. Great photos...! alphabetalife.blogspot.com

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  19. Amazing shots! Must have been really scary to do this!

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  20. That is some epic war footage. It shows the true nature of humans at war.

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  21. Oh my God.
    These pics gave me the chills!

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  22. I wonder what the other shots would have looked like, it's a pity that they didn't work out

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  23. These pictures are an amazing piece of history. I'm glad he was brave enough to decide to take these.

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  24. People who believe wars are needed should sign up to fight in them.

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