The Greatest War Photograph and Robert Capa

I find Whelan’s argument convincing because of the fact that he is throwing statement after statement, whether or not they are true, we won’t know because we were never actually there.  As for the photo being staged I don’t think it was, but something I do question is how he took the photo without being interrupted.  Since it was taken during the war, wouldn’t the enemy be able to spot him taking a photo and raise suspicion on what that person was doing next the person that they were shooting is doing.  Authenticity doesn’t matter in this case because it is a really great photo, from the composition to the timing and meaning of the photo, it makes a great conversation piece even if it was fake or staged, and one thing should be mentioned, if you ask a person if this picture looked staged, I think they will say it isn’t.  When I first saw it I thought he was trying to sit down on the ground after a long day from the war until I found out it was taken the moment he got shot and was falling down from the force of the bullet and was living his last moments.  This best part about this photo is the fact that Capa took a photo of someone’s last moment before they passed away, and in a way, it is a very intimate moment that not everyone would be willing to share with the world.