Spring 2013 History of Photography

I do find Capa’s arguments to be convincing. He is risking his life to obtain such photographs in many situations so why lie about the uniqueness and the stories behind each photo. Being a war photographer I don’t really see much time for Capa to stage his photographs. I contemplate they are more along the lines of in the moment. Because you can be in the right place at the right time and truly accidentally find your money shot or award shot. Although some of his photographs do leave room for speculation. Such as the photograph of his soldier that he captured in the moment when he was shot and just about to fall to the ground. There is no blood, bullets or other soldiers in this shot and the almost graceful fall of the soldier appears to be just to perfect. If this was a battle shot and this man had been shot why is there no one else on the field and why isn’t he in uniform? There was the statement that Capa said that they were running military drills and this man was accidentally shot during the procedures. Although this does seem like a valid explanation of the story behind his photograph we may never know. However I don’t think it matters if a photograph is staged or not because it can still be as impactful. Such as the monumental photograph of the united states flag being hoisted up while on the battle field this photograph looks somewhere in between staged and authentic but when he gives his explanation of how he just so happened to turn around and snap the picture and it turned out to be a success I believe that is true. Multiple times I have just snapped shots and surprisingly they were great. Tons of photographs today are staged in modern day however they still hold their points and get the message across to the public. I don’t think authenticity adds or subtracts from the work and efforts a photographer putts into his shots.

I believe that Hetherington wanted to show the human side of the soldiers, as well as the human side of war in general. About the movie, I believe they just want to show the soldiers as heroes. That’s something I’ve noticed here in the USA: every single soldier is a hero. It doesn’t matter if he succeeded in his mission, if he failed, if he killed many innocent people or anything, and if the soldier dies, then it becomes a more important hero automatically. I believe that this hero status is what drives young people to join the army most of the time, and since heroes have been portrayed in many pictures and movies, the kids just want to be like that. It’s interesting that this photographer actually noticed that type of behavior in the soldiers he work with. However, I believe that it’s just a roll they try to accomplish, that they want to recreate in the battlefields so everybody is proud. In the pictures of the sleeping soldiers, we can see them as regular people, as vulnerable young man, in other words: as humans. They are no longer those heroes that risk the life for this amazing nation, they are just one of us. I’m not sure if Hetherington’s intention was to make photographs of heros, but I believe it wasn’t.

At first I thought that all the arguments were exaggerated. The author of the article gives just so many explanations and many different points of view, that sometimes agree with each other, and sometimes diverge, making the picture seem staged. It’s like when somebody who lied tries to give you so many explanations about what happened, that it just sounds fake. However, after reading the whole article, I was convinced that the picture is not staged. Probably if I see myself in the same situation, of defending something I believe in, and that I’m convinced that it’s true, I would do the same, I would give as many proofs as I could to prove my point. I believe that it’s much easier to just say something is fake, or to give negative feedback to somebody else’s work, than to make such a deep investigation about what happened in reality. However, I must say that in photojournalism it is crucial that the pictures are authentic. Pictures can be staged for artistic purposes or whatever, but if you are trying to document events of any kind, the “correct” way to do it would be by taking the things as they happen, and not fixing anything. However, nowadays pictures go throw an editorial process before going to public eyes. Thankfully we have social media, which could help ending the lies that mainstream media gives us everyday.

I do think Sleeping is a form of art. I always liked watching babies sleep. The face expressions so how their dream is going. smiles show a sense of warm and that there dream is enjoyable. but when you see their eyebrows come together and their nose wrinkle up, and whine a little bit one can tell its not a pleasant dream. Capturing the face expression while babies or anyone sleep is a unique form of art. Most wont think of it as art but you need to observe every detail. The photo that is taken willl have so much meaning behind it. everyone would have a different opinion behind the sleeping art form. It has to be ones personally feel to if sleeping is art.

Robert Whelan’s argument about the authenticity of the Falling Soldier seems legitimate. Since it was proven that the man in the photograph, Federico Borrello Garcia, died during the battle at Cerro Muriano it is possible that it was not a posed photograph. His arguments were convincing but the information didn’t really have an effect on me.

I’m not sure that it matters whether or not the photograph is staged. As long as people were actually dying, its still valid. I think that might sound a bit messed up but the photographer didn’t invent the fact that people were dying. Even if it wasn’t authentic, the photograph still captured the effects of the war. If I was forced to chose a side, I think I would say that it was not staged because of the position in which the man was falling. I agree that it would be difficult to know how to stage a fall correctly, especially if he was a militiaman who probably didn’t have much experience posing as if he was dying. What good is authenticity if it isn’t captured in a way that will tell a powerful story.

I believe that Richard Whelan’s arguments are very convincing.  Apart from believing in the integrity of Capa’s photographs, Whelan sought the help of Captain Robert L. Franks, “the chief homicide detective of the Memphis Police Department and a talented sculptor and photographer.”  After Franks analyzes the pictures, he establishes some pretty valid points.  One of those being the position of the falling soldiers hand.  I personally believe that Capa’s photograph is not staged.  After reading Franks analysis, I was convinced myself that the picture is as true as can be.  In regards to whether or not the authenticity of a photo matters, I honestly don’t know.  I would like to believe that the most moving photographs are those that aren’t staged, but I also believe that there are some powerful photographs that have been staged.  Moreover, if a photographer manages to get his point across and deliver his message, I don’t think they should be criticized.

I think Richard Whelan analysis on Robert Capa were pretty convincing. Especially when he showed that the 2 men in the falling pics were actually the same, as least they look exactly the same. I also start to think about how many photographers like Robert would stage a lot of photos just so it could be published and their name could become more well known. Photographers that went to previous wars like the American Civil War almost always staged dead bodies and made up fake stories to go along with them. I also noticed that the man who was shot in the first photo didn’t even have a wound or blood even dripping from where his wound might possibly be.  That’s why I automatically think that Robert Capa’s photos are staged and fake. I think it does matter if the photo is authentic or not. If it’s not a real photo then why even go to Spain and go through the trouble of traveling if you can just go to a desert in America and replicate those same photos and not have to travel so far to make fake photos.

After viewing bother the video and  Nina Katchadourian’s photographs I think she is articulation to her audience that inspiration is everywhere and she surely is a fan of that. Making new things out of items we would have never thought about twice. Her photographs all seem to be depicting renaissance type of portraits that are very pure either of nuns or formal portraits that portray of the countesses. Which to me suggests that her work is very pure and unique. One of the photographs that work exceptionally well in my opinion is the photograph shown on the blog where she is a nun. I, my self would have never guessed that was simply toilet paper and cloth wrapped around her making her look like a nun. This photo looks just like an 18-century painting of photograph of a nun which clearly makes it a very successful photograph. I thing the message that she is trying to get across from people is to think outside of the box and even when you work with limited materials such as herself you can achieve photographs that are strong without overthinking about what objects are and what they do and start thinking about what can they be turned into or how can they be manipulated.