There is no evidence whatsoever to support the claim that Capa’s surviving negatives from D-Day were ever the subject of any emulsion sliding or melting. The slight image displacement on Capa’s film resulted from a mechanical problem commonly experienced in that era: Kodak’s shorter film cassettes caused the film to get transported slightly lower in the camera — exposing the emulsion around the lower edges of the top sprocket holes as they passed over the film gate. […]
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If Whelan or Young had done their due diligence by consulting photography experts to learn why the image area of Capa’s negatives had encroached on the sprocket holes on one side of the film, they never would have floated such an easily disprovable theory in public. The real reason the sprocket holes along one edge of Capa’s ten D-Day negatives became partially exposed had nothing to do with any supposed emulsion slide from when the film was processed and dried. The cassettes containing the film caused the problem. […] I’m pleased and proud to announce that this ongoing investigative project, with its working title of “Alternate History: Robert Capa on D-Day,” has just received the 2014 Society of Professional Journalists Sigma Delta Chi (SDX) Award for Research About Journalism. As its website indicates, “The Society of Professional Journalists, founded 1909, is a professional organization […] In the best kinds of journalism today, I always hope that a well-seasoned writer will help his subjects’ points of view to shine through it all. Unfortunately, in this latest exercise from the National Press Photographers Association, Bruce Young and Donald Winslow concentrated too much on their own preconceptions. […] |
 SPJ Research Award 2014 |
Ends and Odds Encore
Wearing Sadakichi’s Hat
Last week I finally got to do something I’ve planned for years: have some pictures made of myself wearing Sadakichi Hartmann’s hat.
That calls for some explanation.
Scion of a German father and a Japanese mother, Sadakichi Hartmann (1867-1944) was born on an island in Nagasaki harbor. His mother died […]