The Falling Soldier or Death of a Loyalist Soldier is indeed the greatest war photograph. According to “Proving that Robert Capa’s “Falling Soldier” is Genuine: A Detective Story” the arguments Whelan  brings is pretty convincing on my part. Whelan was explaining that the photograph was proved to be staged but no one ever questioned it. Whelan had few people accusing that the photograph may be fake, that is because there were other few images that may also be staged at the same time of this photograph. I completely think that the Falling Soldier photograph is staged. It is highly unlikely for Capa to know that this particular man will get shot. Especially there isn’t any sign of blood and Capa is in the standing visible to everyone, how come he didn’t get shot? or maybe he did..who knows. But all these inquires suggests that Capa staged this photograph to states its purpose of war. I believe the authenticity does not really matter because when something is genuine it means that it is real but this photograph is very much staged.
The Greatest War Photograph and Capa
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Capa’s greatest photograph of Falling Soldier was indeed one of the greatest war photos during that time. No one had seen a photo of what war was like this until Capa took this picture which clearly shows that he was standing very near to this soldier. I find that Robert Whelman does a good job in analyzing this photograph by providing the facts he gathered about this photo. But even before reading this analysis I was already convinced that this photograph was staged. The photo depicts a man falling the moment he is shot but the position he is in seems almost unreal. The fact that Capa was able to capture the moment this soldier was shot doesn’t surprise me because Capa was a risk taking photographer. However this photo seems staged because there isn’t any sign of blood and this picture doesn’t convince me that it was taken during an ongoing battle, it doesn’t seem real. But I do have to say that this photo does show what war is like because it captures a soldier getting shot, it sends a powerful message. Even though I think it’s staged it does depict war, so Capa was successful at proving his point through this photograph.