The authenticity of Capa’s Falling Soldier does not matter. (Even though I believe that Robert Capa’s image of The Falling Soldier is authentic). Richard Whelan in his article gives plenty of reasons to take Capa’s photo as authentic. Even if it’s not, it played an important role in the history of photography.
What it brought to people is a new perspective on war. Yes, people have seen photos of dead soldiers before, but they have not seen images of people dying at the moment. And I believe they needed to see it. Looking at picture of the Falling Soldier I think of the image of the Home of the Rebel dead soldier. Again, audience sees that out there the soldiers are on their own. Not only they lay dead alone and no one cares – this was the message of the Gettysburg photo – they die alone. Fighting for many, dying alone.
The greatest War photography and Capa – new perspective on war – going back to Gettysburg
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I agree. It does not matter if the photo is staged or not. It already made the history books and has been published over and over again. It already played its important role in history. Proving it was staged won’t change the fact that it was the first image of a dying soldier because I don’t think there is a photo that claims to be the second image of dying soldier. Today, we have many image and videos of dying soldiers. But this photo at its time played a big role.