I have come to believe that Capa’s actions on D-Day resulted from considered planning and calculated risks. He knew that he would have only a short time on the beach. He knew that he had to get back quickly to some ship — preferably the Chase, but if not another — in the convoy scheduled to depart at noon for the English coast. That represented his only hope of getting his films to LIFE on time. […]
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The challenge consists not so much in proving that Landry did not come ashore on June 6 but in finding evidence that he did land on D-Day. So far, the evidence for a D-Day landing is scant, error-prone, and far from convincing. […] It’s been my unhappy experience to discover that the majority of first-person D-Day stories are to some degree inaccurate. Often this is because the individual experienced such a narrow view of the massive operation that he misinterpreted what he saw. In other cases, it is a result of fading memory or unintentional exaggeration. And then there are the cases in which people alter the facts to enhance their reports or their reputations. […] In my opinion, da Cunha’s work constitutes not only an exemplary achievement in the context of the Capa D-Day investigation but a major contribution to the forensic analysis of photographic materials, one that sets a benchmark for future inquiries. […] In this project we have made and continue to make a collective argument in support of a radical deconstruction of an enduring media myth — arguably the most high-profile myth of photojournalism, one of the most familiar in photo history, and one that has infiltrated the wider territory of cultural history. We have as our goal the presentation of sufficient contextualized evidence and reasoning to persuade even the most skeptical. Toward that end we use every tool at our disposal, with thoroughness and attention to detail prominent among those. […] |
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