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. […]
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In place of the established myth, with its enticing melodrama, I supplied an alternative tale with its own attractions, a complex skein of personal and interpersonal motivations: camaraderie, fear, failure, guilt, self-protection, white lies. No less rewarding, I’d like to think, just in a different way. […] Morris’s various tellings of the saga of Capa’s films omitted entirely a vital matter, that of censorship by the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Forces (SHAEF). Any undeveloped film coming in from correspondents at the front was assumed, as a minimum, to be classifiable as secret material, so the handling of Capa’s film would both begin and end on the censors’ desk. […] Lavoie does not intend to contribute to or assess the actual substance of Capa-related research, merely to comment on its semantics. He contents himself with analyzing the language in which that research gets conducted, in order to show that it contains aspects of forensic and juridical rhetoric. Therefore … what, exactly? […] Cynthia Young has a bad habit that’s fatal to credible scholarship: By dint of her position as the de facto world’s foremost Capa authority, she considers herself entitled to simply make up shit like this. […] |
 SPJ Research Award 2014 |