Robert Capa Essay, Research Paper

Robert Capa

Robert Capa was born in Budapest, hungary in 1913. Robert Capa is most known for his photographs in war. Known for obtaining photos taken during a war that shows what it is like to be in a war. Showing things like the hardships that soldiers have to endure and the suffering of people whose homes and cities were destroyed as a result of war. His photos are divided into three categories: images of battle, images of the effect of war on individual soldiers and civilians, and the images of peace. As the photographer, he did more than just sit back and take the pictures, he also participated, getting as close as he could to the action just to take a good picture. He died sometime in 1954 by stepping on a land mine.

In the time of World War I the standard camera used by war photographers was the medium-sized bellows extended Graflex with four by-five inch plates. This camera, being fairly large made making candid shots and maneuvering in dangerous situations impossible. Later the 35 mm Leica allowed Capa to do these things. The camera allowed him to be inconspicuous and have a large capability of movement. With this camera he was able to jump into battles to take pictures that no one else was ever able to take.

One of the main things that Robert Capa tried to capture were the emotions of his subjects. He always tried to portray things such as their sorrow or their shock, mainly focusing on the expressions of the subjects faces to show what emotions they might be feeling.

Despite his worldwide recognition Capa denied the title of a photographer. He always preferred to refer to himself as a photo journalist. To try to prove that he was not a photographer he hated artistic pretension in his medium and refused to learn any more photographic technique than he deemed necessary. In the darkroom he was so careless that many people wondered if he scratched his negatives purposely to try to prove his point that he was not a photographer. As for his lighting methods, he never bothered to use a flash because he preferred to take a powerful image than a technically correct one.

The dead person in the photo is an American soldier who was killed by German snipers. The picture was taken in Leipzig on April 18, 1945. The other picture is of soldiers moving along a road from Nandinh to Thaibinh on May 25, 1954. This picture was the last photo that Robert Capa took before he was killed by stepping on a land mine.