HW#4 Death of a Loyalist Soldier

‘Death of a Loyalist Soldier’ by the Hungarian war photographer and photojournalist, Robert Capa is regarded by many as one of the greatest war photographs in history. However, not long after the photograph was published, a spark of controversy started the fire of doubt and questioning on whether the photograph was staged. Out of love for controversy, I research beyond the article, only to find out that Robert Capa’s biographer named Richard Whelan who published his biography in 1985, along with the fact that the soldier, whose name is (Federico Garcia), was falling backward despite running down-hill, this made me take the position that the photograph was staged. In addition to that, the photograph Vu which was captured of a different soldier in the same exact location, same frame, same background and with no other corpses in either photograph this made me certain that it was not authentic, but I could be wrong and I am opened to changing to perspective if confronted with a more convincing claim than the ones used in the article. Despite my position, I do not think the authenticity of the photograph matters because of the noble anti-war message it delivers and the fact that it displays the how the lives of the millions of soldiers who have fallen and continue to fall are wasted with a bullet. Lastly, I personally do not think it is the greatest war photograph, neither back then nor now because much better pictures were taken around that time and continue to be taken since.