ARTH1100 History of Photography Fall 2016

From Robert Whelan’s analysis of Robert Capa and his works, he did very good job to concluded every detail information about the photograph “Death of a Loyalist Solider”.  All these arguments and detail evidences did convince me, and the photo is in fact not staged although many people disagree with it. I think authenticity matter a lot, especially nowadays because there are so many inauthentic works. We want the truth. But if I compare both the message and authenticity, I think message is lot more important. This is because the whole purpose of publish these works to the public is to send a message to people. Thus, if this photo “Death of a Loyalist Solider”, does its job of sending out message to public or telling the story. It finished its mission.

I think Robert Whelan’s argument is very convincing. He explains everything in detail to prove that this infamous photograph by Capa was not staged. I think this picture is not staged , even though at first when i saw this photograph  in class i thought it was staged but after reading Whelan’s argument I’m convinced that it is not. I do think the authenticity matters. Yes, even though if the photograph was staged it tells a story but to know that it is real and not staged lets the viewer connect with the story more. Another reason i believe this argument is because if Capa photographed pictures from GI landing on Omaha Beach on D-Day, risking his life there is a great chance he photographed this photograph of Death of Loyalist Soldier without staging it.

Having learned about multiple famous photographs that turned out to have been altered or faked puts me in a rather dubious state of mind when determining the legitimacy of Capa’s “Death of a Loyalist Soldier.” Alas, I am still on the fence unless concrete evidence comes to light. Whelan’s argument, though compelling, was not enough to convince me of the authenticity of the photograph. Of course, my judgement could be impaired since I’ve never seen a man shot first hand and know next to nothing about the crucible of war. Personally I don’t believe that the authenticity of the photograph matters, whether Capa arranged this photograph or not,  the message was received by the public. I believe that the impact of a photograph matters more than the means of which it was taken. Capa sought to convey the horrors and hardships of war to viewers and he definitely succeeded in that regard. As Machiavelli said: “The ends justify the means.”

A article “In Love and War” by Robert Whelan talks about Robert Capa’s hard work which was photography during Spanish civil war. Whelan mention that “The Falling Soldier once again as an unquestioned masterpiece of photojournalism and as perhaps the greatest war photograph ever made.” I agree with him that this photography was really powerful and it’s not staged. People argue that the photography by Capa wasn’t real, they trying say shoulder didn’t get shot while he was taking the photograph. However, Whelan argue that Capa’s photography was real, he took the photographs during the war. I believe that the Capa’s photograph was real, it tell us the the story during the war and it’s look real, there is nothing like fake.  A true photographer never do fake things.