I just thought it would be an interesting read after checking out Robert Whelan’s analysis. For those curious, José Manuel Susperregui, a university professor found new evidence that suggests that this picture was shot at a completely different area from where the war was taking place, so it couldn’t have been real.
I find these over-analytical arguments entertaining because all I see is a guy falling over.
This really was an interesting read. I am more and more convinced that the photo is a fake, well, staged actually. And that makes me less impressed because I think good documentary and news photography is all about being at the right place at the right time. When you start staging photos depicting dramatic scenes like this one does, there really is no point. Anyone can stage anything but that is not the point in my opinion at least when we are talking about news and documentary photography.
I am not sure if you read the whole article, but there was no actual evidence that Capa stayed at a hotel with Gallagher, since Gallagher’s memory was failing him. For all we know it could have been any other person at the hotel with him. Also, the main proof that this photo was actually NOT posed, is the fact that the man in the photograph was Federico Garcia, one of the Spanish soldiers who died in the Civil War. When Brotons, another Spanish soldier, showed Capa’s photograph of “The falling soldier” to Federico’s younger brother, the younger brother confirmed that the person in the picture was actually his older brother, which authenticates that Capa’s photograph was not staged, but was actually Federico Garcia at his time of death.
This article was very helpful because I was thinking that this photo was taken in a quiet field. There is some proof. In the image the place looks like that there is no activity going on. Thanks to José Manuel Susperregui, he has brought a good point with strong evidence. He did not just suggest that it is taken in a quiet place, but he also stated the place where the photo was most likely taken.
It’s very interesting article. There are a lot of proofs that this photo 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 this article 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.