Robert Capa D-day “ruined” film article

PRJ said:
He got the glory but when it really counted he was a chicken s***.
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Whoa, whoa! Did you read this article? Coleman admits that Capa may have been suffering from PTSD. I don't think it's appropriate to disparage Capa for leaving the battlefield so quickly because that's a real possibility (even though Coleman would proffer the alternative or simultaneous possibility that Capa just wanted to get out ASAP to meet the deadline).

We must consider the possibility that he suffered from what they then called “shell shock” and we now call post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). But we must also consider the possibility that, even before setting forth that morning, Capa made a calculated decision to leave the battlefield at the first opportunity, in order to get his films to London in time to make the deadline for LIFE’s next issue; if he missed that deadline, any images of the landing would become old news and his effort and risks in making them would have been for naught.
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PRJ said:
If you want to study a true war photographer who didn't do it for personal glory, take a look at James Nachtwey.
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Actually, Nachtwey is often criticized for marketing himself as a Christ figure with a white savior mentality. Coleman is solidly against all of this mythologizing about war photographers, which romanticizes the profession and contributes to vocational awe. The news industry then uses that to justify low wages and precarity since war photographers are doing it for its own sake.
 
Only Capa and Bob Landry were accredited civilian photographers who landed with the first wav. Landry lost all his camera equipment as far as I know.

The Signal Photo Company Detachments material of the morning was lost as well.

Capa's photos are the only stuff that survived from the initial landing.

That's why most of the footage we see of Omaha Beach is from later in the day from cameramen and photographers coming in with later waves.

It was so bad for the news reel agencies, they resorted to using footage from the days after as well. Look up "D-Day Rescue" for example. This was actually filmed and photographed on D+1.
 
Anyone who willingly went into battle armed only with a camera - including jumping from a plane with combat troops as Capa did later in Europe has my respect as a brave man. Truth is, I get heartily sick of revisionist "historians" with an agenda setting out to pull down people who unlike them were living their life under the gun, not sitting behind a desk, desperate to make a name for themselves by trying to poke holes in others' reputation.
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Nice to see that response, and other similar comments. The parachute jump was with the 513 PIR on 24 March 1945.
 
That was for Operation Varsity, yes.

There is also that photo of Capa in paratrooper kit carrying an Rolleiflex 'old standard' in North Africa in the lead up to Operation Husky, but he eventually did not jump into Sicily.
 
I see no problem with the article other than that the wording doesn't make clear enough how speculative a lot of it is. Questioning assumed truths is good, especially if they are so implausible.
Any thoughts on how the negatives look? Is this softness actually something that happens when you melt the emulsion or is it motion blur (doesn't look typical to me), like someone suggested he might have use too low a shutter speed?
 
The available light could have been significantly subdued by the smoke from the initial naval/aerial bombardment when the first wave went ashore. Daylight should otherwise have been sufficient around 6:30/7:00 AM.
 
We’re missing the point here. It’s not about the fact that he was scared on the beach... I mean who the hell wouldn’t be? And he took a lot of risks in his career, he’s a braver man than me.

My issue is that his story that goes along with it has a huge number of holes in it. Why not just tell the truth? Everything you hear about this story in the media leads you to infer that he was in the first wave... clearly that is not the case. The real disappointment for me is that the shot which I thought were the heavy action on d-day were in fact after the beach had all but been cleared.
 
Agreed, and as azain mentioned above, Coleman is addressing the mythology surrounding these pictures. I'd consider it his exercise in fact finding and I don't see anything wrong with it.
 
Do you want to know why you don't see any photos of combat when bullets are flying by actual US military photographers? It's because we all have rifles or we are on mortar platoons or we are manning a crew-served weapon. While we are in combat our first job is as a Rifleman to protect ourselves and our fellow squad members. Once everybody can raise their heads because the machine gun fire and the bombardment has stopped is when we get to take photos. A large number of those photos, if they are not classified, are boring. Military photographers are out there in the field as insurance claims agents.
Phil Forrest
 
Phil_F_NM said:
Do you want to know why you don't see any photos of combat when bullets are flying by actual US military photographers? It's because we all have rifles or we are on mortar platoons or we are manning a crew-served weapon.
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Uh, I am going to heavily disagree with you there, Phil. There are plenty of actual combat photos from signal photo company units on assignment in WW2.
Combat engineers were soldiers first and engineers second. Not so the Signal Corps Photographer/Cameraman. Yes they carried side-arms or a carbine at the max, but theirs was not the job to fight.

...Okay, a lot of San Pietro was staged.... I'll give you that.
 
I'll have to add the caveat that I am speaking about post-Vietnam era photographers. Even the now defunct COMCAM was an armed squad that participated in tactics alongside the SF and regular units they were supporting.
Phil Forrest
 
Two of my friends served with the Navy's Combat Camera units before their disestablishment last year.

I confess I'm not up to snuff on the Post-Vietnam era and how military photographers were deployed in the field since then. But from your response I take it it is very much unlike the 4-man assignment teams trailing after the Armies as they spread across Europe and Asia during WW2.
 
PRJ said:
Seems to me that Capa was a serial liar. Even made up his name. Faked shots. Stole credit from Taro. He got the glory but when it really counted he was a chicken s***. So much for "if your pictures aren't good enough, you aren't close enough."
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That’s my impression as well. BS artist


The image of the Spanish fighter falling is a farce.
 
Peter Wijninga said:
Agreed, and as azain mentioned above, Coleman is addressing the mythology surrounding these pictures. I'd consider it his exercise in fact finding and I don't see anything wrong with it.
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Peter, in part I agree with you except that a lot of the writer's alternatives "facts" seem to me to be based on wobbly evidence and outright conjecture.

For example his assertion that Capa in fact went in on the 13th wave, considerably after the first couple of waves as Capa claimed and so instead was landed around 8.15 am. But (an admittedly fairly cursory) examination of readily available information suggests instead that Company E of the 16th Infantry Regiment, U.S. 1st Division (the Company which Capa was accompanying) was landed around 6.40 am. Pretty much just as Capa claimed - though not in the first wave strictly speaking.

e.g. One published report also states: " At approximately 0710 hours, Company G was ordered to move forward toward the front and managed to infiltrate thru a narrow gap between the mine fields between the shingle mound and the cliff overlooking the beach. The section of Company E, 16th Infantry, under command of 2nd Lieutenant Spalding and remnants of two sections from Company E, 116th Infantry, were those troops pinned down at the base of the cliff."
http://www.americandday.org/Documents/1st_ID-16th_IR-2nd_Bn-G_Company-Account.html

Clearly this suggests that Easy Company, 16th Infantry landed amongst the early waves of assault troops otherwise that section would not be in the above place at that time. The other evidence suggesting this is that Capa's photos pretty clearly indicate that the tide was out (the German metal stakes were in no more than a few inches of water). Which I believe was the case during early morning on D Day - the army wanted to go at high tide but this was not possible for a variety of powerful reasons including the presence of obstacles topped by mines which would be submerged at high tide and hence unable to be avoided. So instead they went a little after low tide which also happened to be around dawn and thus a better time on those grounds alone.

Furthermore, some of the writer's claims about Capa, which come across sounding suspiciously like innuendo, is "backed up" by rhetoric like this:

"Using distinctive landmarks visible in Capa’s photos, Charles Herrick has pinpointed exactly where Capa landed on Easy Red: the beach at Colleville-sur-Mer. Gap Assault Team 10 had charge of the obstacles in that sector. An existing exit off this sector made it possible to reach the top of the bluffs with relative ease. Col. Taylor would become famous for announcing to the hesitant troops he found there, “Two kinds of people are staying on this beach, the dead and those who are going to die — now let’s get the hell out of here......"

Relative ease? The first sentence in that quote is contradicted by the second - Col Taylor's very words make it perfectly clear that the fight at Colleville-sur-Mer was anything but a walk though. And my memory from reading about D Day (though I have not gone back to those sources to check) is that this Colleville-sur-Mer exit point referred to here was strongly defended by heavily fortified bunkers for obvious reasons - such exit points always are because they are obvious points of attack.

Overall the flavor of the article I get is that the author seems to be trying to suggest that Capa was playing fast and loose with the truth and was not as brave as history records and needs to be debunked. Well, I acknowledge that Capa did sometimes exaggerate but here's the thing. His photos are real. And they do not show men strolling ashore against weak or no resistance. I have NEVER heard any account of Omaha beach that claims that even after the first couple of hours of fighting. The key facts of his story are real enough - though Capa did later in his bio say he went in, in the first wave. Which could be braggadocio, or its could be him mis remembering, or it could be him deciding to stick with the story already described in Life's interpretation. So what - that reasoning is like splitting hairs or asking how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.

And as to the writer's claims about what Life said regarding the images, anyone who has ever written a book or article (hell anyone who has ever read a book or article) knows that you never take entirely seriously what editors add or subtract from the story or put in captions - I doubt very much that even Capa had editorial control over the captions on his images. So I am not willing to be so readily critical of Capa as some here because in the heat of battle or after the passage of years he got some details wrong - or the magazine did.

I suppose it is hyperbole to ask (but I cannot stop my self from asking anyway): What next, claims that Capa downloaded his photos from the internet? OK that's hyperbolic and I retract it. But I enjoyed saying it anyway. :)
 
I skimmed it, and found lots of stawman arguments and other flawed logic. Life is too short to read this guys hyperbole about "myths" and his smugness about punishing a former American hero. Interestingly, the SPE that brings this article, also has a conference this summer titled “The Myths of Photography and the American Dream" which explains how all the evils of 20th Century America can be blamed on conspiratorial photographers over the generations. Tripe, and I'm not wasting any more time with this article.
 
goamules said:
I skimmed it, and found lots of stawman arguments and other flawed logic. Life is too short to read this guys hyperbole about "myths" and his smugness about punishing a former American hero. Interestingly, the SPE that brings this article, also has a conference this summer titled “The Myths of Photography and the American Dream" which explains how all the evils of 20th Century America can be blamed on conspiratorial photographers over the generations. Tripe, and I'm not wasting any more time with this article.
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Agreed. We live in a time where people love to pull down heros as well as push the kind of line you suggest.
 
Methinks it's understandable Capa was in and out as fast as he could, to provide least some photographic material for such a historic event. After he had sent first rolls for developing, he had better time to continue working, and returned back across the channel.

"Disaster in drying cabin", article writer seems to know all the equipment and procedures that Life staff had been using, when doors supposed to be open and when closed, how their films would react to over heating and so on. Am bit hesitant to take his word for it, even after reading article more carefully.

That said, would not be surprised if there wasn't some "legend building" over the decades by parties who benefited from it.
 
The bit about Magnum knocking up some dodgy frames is a bit worrying, especially in the light of them having done a few things that stray past the line of truth in recent years.
 
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