Robert Capa "Death of a Loyalist Soldier" 1936
At the age of 23, Robert Capa took a photograph that many have labeled the greatest war photograph of all time. Taken during the Spanish Civil War, the renown of Capa’s photograph, Falling Soldier or Death of a Loyalist Soldier, reverberated around the world as it was published and republished in contemporary news magazines. However, Capa’s photo has been shadowed by controversy, including accusations of fakery. Read an analysis on the image by Capa’s biographer, Robert Whelan, on the authenticity of the photograph. Do you find his arguments convincing? Do you think Capa’s photograph is staged or not? And do you think its authenticity matters?
Richard Whelan’s discussion of Capa’s photograph
Please post your responses by Thursday, December 1st. Please note: due to the holiday on Thanksgiving, you have TWO weeks to post/comment on this discussion topic. For those of you who are behind on your blogging, I will continue to post a Discussion Topic on Thanksgiving in order to allow time for you to make up missed posts. This later Discussion Topis will also be due December 1.
I’m uncertain if it was staged or not but I am leaning towards staged. I agree with the hands not flexing to brace the fall as it’s just natural reflex, on contrary, he is still grasping the rifle. Robert Capa’s ability to capture the photo at just the right moment has to be down to the seconds as it happened so quickly. I’m not saying its impossible but it would be rare, unless his camera was on him the whole time waiting for something to happen without knowing what. Being that this is supposedly the first photograph of a man being killed then yes, authenticity does matter as it is forever going down in the history of photography.
First of all, I agree with you that authenticity does matter in this case since it’s considered to be the first photograph of a man being killed in the history of photography. Also, I agree with you and the analysis that “the hands not flexing to brace the fall as it’s just natural reflex,” but I think the photograph was not staged. I do not see his other hand was “grasping the rifle” as you described, instead I think he’s loosing his grip of the rifle. His palm was widely open, the tip of his thumb was just slightly touching the edge of the rifle, it didn’t show any sign of applied force on the rifle by the hand in order to grasp it. And since Capa was a photographer dedicated to document the war, it’s expected that he would carry his camera with him all the time with the hope of capturing the scenes if anything happens. In addition, as a photographer, you not only need the eye to see what others don’t see, but also some luck to make a great picture, like what Henri Cartier-Bresson did for his “Behind the Gare St. Lazare” in 1932.
The hand that looks like it is bracing the fall is not a convincing fact that makes the picture look staged. It could be just hanging to the side as this soldier falls. I think there is a good chance that this photo is stage. It is so because of the background. I do not see any other soldiers or anything that suggests that there is a war going on. It looks like an open field. So there is a good chance that this photo was taken after the war. As it was mentioned above, “as a photographer, you not only need the eye to see what others don’t see, but also some luck to make a great picture,” may be Robert Capa saw something, but was not able to get a shot. He could have arranged for this to happen.
It is interesting how the sequences of pictures make the doubt about Robert Capa’s authenticity of the photograph “Falling Soldier” and I think the authenticity matters just because we learn as a part of photography history and the photographer of such a great photograph should be honored without doubt. I think the photo wasn’t staged even though the position of falling solider looks awkward. the reason why is that because If I was asked to fall down to create a staged photo, I wouldn’t be concious about not to straight out my fingers to be ready for the impact of falling down and it’s really hard not to do that. So I believe that it is the extraordinary photo captured the moment of death.
I have read I lot of articles in the internet about this photo. There are a lot of proofs and evidences that it is staged. For example that Capa was in Barcelona at that time; that the landscape around Cerro Muriano looks nothing like that in the photograph. After reading theses articles this photo started to looks not real for me: the posture of soldier is a kind of unnatural; the place too clean and quiet. But anyway, this photos causes so much debates and controversies that I can say that it’s very worthy photo in the history of photography, even if it’s fake.
There will always be a debate over this photograph. Even though extensive evidence was provided to prove that it was not staged, it’s human nature to always question what is and what isn’t. Based on the findings of the investigation i.e. the identification of the “Falling Soldier” by his brother, the analysis of the photograph by the expert I would say that it was not staged. In addition, documentation of the account of the battle of that day, that only one person died (which is quite strange) which was in fact the “Falling Soldier,” Capa would have had to go through great lengths to get a ‘staged’ photograph recorded as a part of history. However we may perceive this photograph, it is nonetheless a great photograph of it’s time and of history.
I really don’t think it’s a fake or a staged photograph as people make it out to be. Sometimes we can’t believe every documented written piece of evidence that we read or find in the internet, books, or articles either. Sometimes we just need to sit there and really analyze the photograph for ourselves. The soldier is loosing his grip off the rifle as well as loosing his balance. His face expression seems like of a person who is being shot. This photograph really captures a moment of slow-motion pace as well. Robert Capa once said that, “If you’re pictures aren’t good enough, you’re not close enough.”Meaning if you want to document and show the war in your photographs than you need to get really close to the action.
Also authenticity of this photograph matters since it’s labeled as the first photograph in history of a soldier being killed.
To be honest, I think it is very difficult to verify the authenticity of Robert Capa’s picture but if anyone should have been the first in history to photograph a soldier being killed, I’m glad it was Capa. I absolutely like the composition of the image it definitely makes you want to look at it several times. I wish we would have been able to see a little bit of blood, maybe he could have followed up with a close-up afterwards. But yes, I understand that Capa probably ran for dear life because he was endangered. Real or not, I completely see how this is such an iconic image.