Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2006/03/22

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Subject: [Leica] WAS: enough with Olympus NOW HCB
From: bdcolen at comcast.net (B. D. Colen)
Date: Wed Mar 22 06:24:11 2006

I'm not saying that it's impossible that he faked it, Paul - what I am
saying is that if he did, that fact is extremely important. And if I knew
that he did, it would cause me to question much about his legend.


On 3/22/06 9:16 AM, "PHC" <paul@paulhardycarter.com> wrote:

> I'm not sure that argument stands up. Here's why:
> 
> Capa was without doubt in my mind a great photographer, who developed
> enormously, and a very brave man. But he was also certainly a gambler
> with an eye to the main chance, most especially in the early days of
> his career.
> 
> This is clearly supposition, but I don't think it's impossible to
> imagine Endre Friedmann, newly re-named (as a bit of a lark) Robert
> Capa, in Spain taking pictures during a civil war in which he was
> utterly biased (as I too would have been), trying to make his mark,
> setting up a picture to help both himself and the cause.
> 
> I think this Capa is quite different to the consummate professional who
> waded ashore on Omaha.
> 
> Incidentally, I didn't mean to intimate that Capa wouldn't have known
> whether the Soldier was shot or not. Sorry if I gave that impression.
> 
> P.
> 
> *******
> Paul Hardy Carter
> www.paulhardycarter.com
> www.digitalrailroad.net/phc
> +44 (0)20 7871 7553
> *******
> 
> On 22 Mar 2006, at 14:23, B. D. Colen wrote:
> 
>> Why 'worry' about it? Because, to some degree, Truth still matters.
>> And by the way - a combat photographer sure as hell knows if he's just
>> shot
>> a guy who's just been shot, or if he posed the guy. And IF Capa posed
>> the
>> guy - and for the Xth time, I believe in the integrity of the photo,
>> that
>> act calls into question the entirity of his body of work as a war
>> photographer. And frankly, I think that that body of work, and the
>> risks he
>> routinely took, which ultimately cost his life, are as close as we will
>> ever come to "proof" that the photo is real.
> 
> 
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Replies: Reply from paul at paulhardycarter.com (PHC) ([Leica] WAS: enough with Olympus NOW HCB)
In reply to: Message from paul at paulhardycarter.com (PHC) ([Leica] WAS: enough with Olympus NOW HCB)