If, as we are regularly encouraged to do, we pay heed to the lives and works of Robert Capa and John Morris, then, in the spirit of the field of journalism in which they both worked and to which they declared their commitment, we should do so “warts and all.” The fabrication of their D-Day myth has a prominent place among those blemishes. […]
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Ironically, Robert Capa’s life and work — committed, above all, to the fight against fascism — has ended up, by his own doing, enmeshed in its very own “big lie,” which, repeated often enough (as that strategy’s progenitor predicted), has become what people believe. An object lesson in how “the big lie” functions. We’ve had 70 years of that lie — surely enough. It ends here. […] I try my best to keep up with whatever news affects me as a member of our lens culture, I attend some of the trade expos, I talk with and listen closely to photographers, I observe at first hand what goes on in photo-education programs around the world, and I make a point of reading the handwriting on the walls. So, when Eastman Kodak announced on June 22 that it had ceased production of Kodachrome film after 74 years, I didn’t consider that at all surprising. Indeed, I found myself in the odd position of thinking “I told you so.” […] |
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Alternate History: Robert Capa on D-Day (11)
These represent the types of pointed questions that you’d get asked by a serious interviewer who’d done his research — not someone kissing up to you, like Bob Pledge at the ICP, and not someone invested in feeding the Capa legend, like his biographer or the curator of his archive. […]