![\"A.](\"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/artandphoto\/photocritic\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/ADColeman_with_unexposed_developed_TriX_film_1-23-15.jpg\")
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June 6, 2026 marked the 82nd anniversary of D-Day and the twelfth anniversary of this Capa D-Day research project<\/a>.<\/p>\n As I predicted in my previous post in this series<\/a>, the internet paid little serious attention to this 82nd anniversary of D-Day. It’s not a milestone year for the invasion. Searches for Robert Capa D-Day 2026, conducted in both Google and DuckDuckGo on June 7-9, turned up few substantial online features timed to commemorate the occasion.<\/p>\n Indeed, arguably the most significant online event concerning the Robert Capa D-Day myth was one that didn’t happen. In a notable, perhaps even historic change of policy, the International Center of Photography for the very first time refrained from repeating the “darkroom disaster” chapter of the myth in its D-Day postings to its Facebook<\/a> and Instagram<\/a> accounts. (Regrettably, they did reiterate the “first wave” part of the myth, despite the fact that the photo they use to illustrate this post clearly shows multiple waves well ahead of Capa on the beach. Baby steps.)<\/p>\n International Center of Photography, Instagram account, Robert Capa D-Day post, 6-6-26, screenshot<\/p><\/div>\n Will wonders never cease? Imagine the sheer force of institutional will it must have taken on the parts of ICP’s current administration and staff to resist the siren call of tradition in order to make this tentative, incremental move toward truth-telling. Dare hope spring eternal? To date the ICP has never once acknowledged our research or our findings. Yet I’ll venture this prophecy: Probably not we ourselves, but perhaps our children, and surely our children’s children, will see the day when ICP acknowledges that for almost 60 years they’ve fed the world a pile of bullshit. Call me Pollyanna if you must, but remember: you read it here first.<\/p>\n \u2022<\/p>\n The next major D-Day fanfare will come in 2029, the 85nd anniversary \u2014 most likely the last at which any survivors of the occasion will defy the actuarial tables in order to make an appearance. (Though with modern medicine working its wonders, who can say?)<\/p>\n Meanwhile, technology marches on inexorably, and the waves it creates as it advances inevitably spill over onto everything. Case in point …<\/p>\n \u2022<\/p>\n The Capa D-Day Myth Meets AI Slop<\/strong><\/p>\n “AI slop,” often simply “slop,” is a term for low-quality media, including writing and images, made using generative artificial intelligence technology, characterized by an inherent lack of effort, being generated at an overwhelming volume. Coined in the 2020s, the term has a pejorative connotation similar to “spam.” AI slop has been variously defined as “digital clutter,” “filler content [prioritizing] speed and quantity over substance and quality,” and “shoddy or unwanted AI content in social media, art, books and […] search results.” \u2014 <\/em>Wikipedia<\/p>\n In last year’s D-Day anniversary post<\/a>, I discussed British photographer and conceptual artist Phillip Toledano’s generation, via artificial intelligence (AI), of simulacra of Robert Capa’s purportedly “lost” and “ruined” D-Day photographs. Therein Toledano writes of his generic (and inaccurate) results, “working with ai, I imagine one of capa’s lost roll of 36 images \u2013 and in doing so, demonstrate how utterly convincing [sic] invented history can be.” If you say so, pal.<\/p>\n Phillip Toledano We Are at War (2024), contact sheet<\/p><\/div>\n \u2022<\/p>\n Toledano’s We Are at War<\/em> project dates from June 2024 and represents (so far as I can determine) the first attempt to apply AI to Capa’s D-Day myth. But not the last.<\/p>\n Two more recent instances of Capa D-Day-related AI slop have already come to my attention.<\/p>\n In second place, chronologically, we have Reza Nazari, who self-published Robert Capa: An Inspiring Story for Kids in Farsi and English<\/em> in paperback on May 25, 2025, slightly less than a year after Toledano’s pioneering effort.<\/p>\n Nazari’s self-description at Amazon states that he is<\/p>\n “… an instructor and a test-prep expert who has been tutoring students since 2008. Reza is the founder of Effortless Math Education Inc., a test prep company that has helped thousands of students raise their standardized test scores \u2014 and attend the colleges of their dreams. Tens of thousands of students have used Reza’s academic resources to improve their performance on standardized tests.”<\/em><\/p>\n Both the images and the texts of this 42-page book (which you’ll find here at Amazon<\/a>) appear to have AI origins. Aimed at readers age 3-7 years old, the biographical commentary is rudimentary, generic, and vapid, a few facts sprinkled among sanitized encomia. (Examples: “In his free time, Robert liked to play cards, a hobby he picked up from his father.” Or “Through his playful habits, love for travel, and warm personality, Robert Capa showed the world the power of connecting with others and sharing their stories.”)<\/p>\n The illustrations match the prose, cartoonish and replete with historical inaccuracies. Here’s Capa in his trademark fedora with Gerda Taro (note her period cameras):<\/p>\n Reza Nazari, Robert Capa and Gerda Taro (2025)<\/p><\/div>\n \u2022<\/p>\n And here’s Capa on Omaha Beach, with his famous 4×5 bellows camera mounted on a tripod:<\/p>\n Reza Nazari, Robert Capa on D-Day (2025)<\/p><\/div>\n \u2022<\/p>\n And here’s Capa in his famous studio with his famous personalized 5×7 on a tripod, wearing his trademark suspenders and glasses:<\/p>\n Reza Nazari, The Story of Robert Capa: An Inspiring Story for Kids in Farsi and English (2025), cover<\/p><\/div>\n \u2022<\/p>\n Nazari parrots the fiction about Capa’s iconic “Falling Soldier.” Notably, however, and commendably, while the book’s brief D-Day commentary makes reference to “the Magnificent Eleven,” it avoids claiming that any negatives got destroyed in the darkroom. Perhaps that required too much explaining for this age group. But possibly this long-running inquiry of ours had a salutory effect on Nazari’s otherwise mediocre and virtually content-free “biography.”<\/p>\n It’s certainly aimed at the youngest cohort of any book on Capa to date, and of course it’s also presented in Farsi, which alone makes it unique in the literature on Capa. Other than that, it has no distinction.<\/p>\n Note: Nazari has published, under the same imprint, what I assume are comparable but considerably longer “biographies” of Nikolai Gogol, Paul the Apostle, George Orwell, Winston Churchill, Michael Faraday, Jean Racine, Elizabeth Taylor, Beethoven, John Calvin, Carl Gustav Yung (sic), Nicolaus Copernicus, and many others, often subtitled “The Inspiring Story of a Genius.” Some are in English and Farsi, most in English only. With the exception of this Capa bio, all target the 7-12 age group, and are priced between $14.99-16.99. (Why Nazari singled out Capa for the attention of children ages 3-7, known for their keen interest in biography, must forever remain a mystery.)<\/em><\/p>\n Reza Nazari, Robert Capa, Amazon listing (2026), screenshot<\/p><\/div>\n Who needs monkeys and typewriters when, with AI, you can crank these out as fast as you can think of a famous name? At $12.99-16.99 a pop (free shipping!) it’s almost pure profit. And what doting parent doesn’t believe in their heart of hearts that their darling child between the ages of 7 and 12 is ready and eager to learn something about Gogol, Orwell, Churchill, Liz Taylor, Grover Cleveland, “Yung,” and Ludwig van?<\/em><\/p>\n \u2022<\/p>\n Coming in a close third in the Capa D-Day AI slop sweepstakes is Timothy Floyd’s “Robert Capa Focus Hocus-Pocus.”<\/a> While he published the first of this ongoing series of blog posts on May 21, 2025, he didn’t use an AI-generated image \u2014 the one of a mustachioed Capa on Omaha Beach, immediately below \u2014 until his tenth post, on May 28, which therefore puts him just a whisker behind Nazari in this race to the bottom.<\/p>\n Floyd’s project constitutes a Capaphile’s lengthy and hugely flawed attempt to discredit our “Alternate History” investigation. (Note: Floyd has taken all but one of his posts in this series<\/a> temporarily offline. A synopsis of his arguments is available<\/a> at L’Oeil de la Photographie.)<\/p>\n Ill-advisedly, Floyd illustrates his exemplifications of confirmation bias with numerous AI-generated images, such as this:<\/p>\n Robert Capa, who grew a mustache for the invasion, on Easy Red. AI image generated by Timothy Floyd, May 2025, screenshot.<\/p><\/div>\n and this:<\/p>\n Robert Capa in clown shoes getting kicked off a rowboat on D-Day, tintype. AI image generated by Timothy Floyd, June 2025, screenshot.<\/p><\/div>\n and this:<\/p>\n John Morris, who aged 20 years during his brief stay in London. AI image generated by Timothy Floyd, 2025, screenshot.<\/p><\/div>\n \u2022<\/p>\n Worth noting that these come from the online project of a photographer who wrote, “By the way, AI platforms tend to ‘hallucinate.'” He included this caution in a comment responding to my critique of his research in a previous post<\/a>. I’ve already dissected Floyd’s research on the “ruined negatives” myth, and I’ll have more to say about his efforts at a later date. In the meantime, a pro tip: If you want to have your research taken seriously, don’t litter it with AI slop illustrations.<\/p>\n So AI has already begun to infiltrate the field of photo history. I suspect the full onslaught of AI degradation lies not far ahead. And it ain’t pretty. For the moment, I’ll just make this prediction regarding Capa D-Day-related AI slop: Apr\u00e8s \u00e7a, le d\u00e9luge<\/em>.<\/p>\n \u2022<\/p>\n The Capa D-Day Myth Meets AI Slop (continued) Apparently, over the past three years a genre of YouTube videos has emerged, generated via AI, with running times of a minute or less, categorized as “shorts” and presumably aimed at the TL;DR\/ADHD generation. Many, it seems, get uploaded simultaneously to social media (Instagram, TikTok, X) and YouTube. Somehow, over the same period of time, the Capa D-Day myth has drawn the attention of those inclined to spew such fluff onto the internet for fun and\/or profit.<\/p>\n Though several of those “shorts” listed below got published before my last round-up a year ago, the majority date from 2026. That does not bode well. This is the cluster I found on June 7; by the time you read this there may well be more. I’ve listed them chronologically and made the title of each a link to it at YouTube, followed by the name of its YouTube channel and its date of publication there.<\/p>\n \u2022 “Robert Capa & The D Day Negatives<\/a>,” @thegeniusofphotography, May 23, 2023. One-minute AI-generated repetition of the myth. Includes, without explanation, a photo of Larry Burrows, “tea boy” in LIFE<\/em>‘s London darkroom on D-Day and rumored to be the anonymous “darkroom lad” who ruined Capa’s invasion films until John Morris fingered Denis Banks as the culprit.<\/p>\n \u2022 “Only survived photos from D-Day<\/a>,” @thevoiceofwonderlust, February 29, 2024. An AI short parroting the darkroom-disaster fable.<\/p>\n \u2022 “Robert Capa’s D-Day photos: war photography, myth-making, and the truth behind the blur<\/a>,” @eyeshot-photos, June 6, 2025. One-minute AI-generated video that, remarkably, states that Capa made only 11 images on Omaha Beach.<\/p>\n \u2022 “Robert Capa’s D-Day photos animated<\/a>,” by Paul Selski, June 6, 2025. Uses AI to animate colorized versions of four of Capa’s ten Easy Red images. Duration: 17 seconds. No narration. Not sure of the point of this, but at least it offers something new. While it doesn’t qualify as evidence, it does show the troops sloshing steadily through the surf.<\/p>\n \u2022 “The D-Day Photographer Who Lied About His Photos: Robert Capa<\/a>,” World War Wisdom, January 19, 2026. This channel opened in 2021 and has acquired 897K subscribers. Clearly AI-generated b&w montage of Capa’s images, intercut with a dude in combat uniform \u2014 self-described as “not a veteran” but “a history nerd” \u2014 stating the myth of Capa’s 90 minutes on Omaha Beach, followed by a synopsis of Charles Herrick’s debunking thereof. I suppose this counts as a win in our endless battle against the myth.<\/p>\n \u2022 “What happened to the rest of Robert Capa’s Omaha Beach photos? Well, it seems most likely that they never existed in the first place<\/a>.” World War Wisdom, January 26, 2026. Same dude, same uniform, devotes a minute to our debunking of the darkroom disaster myth. Definitely a win.<\/p>\n \u2022 “Robert Capa – Photographer<\/a>,” @MysteriesandAdventures, February 4, 2026. An AI short parroting the darkroom-disaster fable.<\/p>\n \u2022 “Robert Capa’s D-Day Photos ACCIDENTALLY Destroyed \u2014 Only 11 Survived<\/a>,” History Simplified, February 20, 2026. A six-second (yes, that’s 6 seconds) AI short parroting the darkroom-disaster fable.<\/p>\n \u2022 “The D-Day Photos That Were Almost Destroyed | Robert Capa Story<\/a>,” @JacobBeemer, March 24, 2026. An AI short parroting the darkroom-disaster fable.<\/p>\n \u2022 “He landed on D-Day with just a camera<\/a>,” Gunner11, April 23 2026. An AI short parroting the darkroom-disaster fable.<\/p>\n \u2022 “Robert Capa’s D-Day Photos \u2014 The Accident That Erased History<\/a>,” Forbidden Frame, April 25, 2026. An AI short parroting the darkroom-disaster fable.<\/p>\n \u2022 “The Man Who Photographed D-Day. His Camera Saved Only 11 Frames<\/a>,” @AncientLensFilms, May 9, 2026. Another six-second parroting of the darkroom disaster myth.<\/p>\n \u2022 “D-Day’s Only Photos<\/a>,” @HistoryUnveiled, May 14, 2026. Another six-second parroting of the darkroom disaster myth.<\/p>\n \u2022<\/p>\n At the opposite end of the duration spectrum, there’s “Instead of a Rifle – a Camera! Eleven Photos That Survived Omaha Beach<\/a>,” War People, May 30, 2026. It runs 44 minutes, and consists visually of an AI-generated montage, with a mix of clips from WWII newsreels and propaganda films from both the European and Pacific theaters \u2014 so you get Tojo, Japanese Zeros, the Battle of Midway, various battle sites in France and Germany, and the Nazi concentration camps, with a few snippets of coverage of the Normandy invasion mixed in.<\/p>\n The heartfelt yet murmured, sometimes barely audible narration is not AI-generated, but this sleep-inducing voiceover reciting overwrought prose consistently mispronounces Capa’s last name as KAY-pah, adding a surely unwanted comical aspect to the project. The prose alludes frequently to our debunking of the myth, but spends most of its time reiterating the myths. Remarkably, despite taking Capa and his D-Day photos as subject, it includes no photographs of Capa and no photographs by him.<\/p>\n \u2022<\/p>\n On a Related Subject Speaking of AI, on April 8, 2025 my esteemed Spanish colleague Jos\u00e9 Manuel Susperregui, whose parallel investigation to ours has thoroughly deconstructed the fiction behind Capa’s staging of the iconic “Falling Soldier” image from the Spanish Civil War, wrote the following in an email:<\/p>\n Dear A. D. Coleman,<\/em> “The leading intellectual authorities on Robert Capa’s photographic work are located at the International Center of Photography (ICP) in New York. Having held official positions at the ICP, A. D. Coleman (photography historian and critic) and Cynthia Young (curator) are considered the de facto world’s leading authorities on Robert Capa.”<\/em><\/p>\n Congratulations<\/em><\/p>\n J. M. Susperregui<\/em><\/p>\n \u2022<\/p>\n While I appreciate the encomium, it demonstrates absolutely the fallibility of AI: I have never “held [an] official position[s] at the ICP.” The closest I came was a one-semester stint as ICP critic-in-residence in 1979, a fact that I don’t think appears anywhere online and thus can’t be the reference here. What do appear online are multiple references to my interactions with the ICP over this research project, including my two-day 2014 dive into the Capa archives there<\/a>, which Google’s Gemini AI may have mistaken for full-time employment.<\/p>\n Because it specifically designates me as a Robert Capa expert, I would attribute this result to search-engine algorithms. Due to our 12-year investigation of the Capa D-Day myth, including not just my own posts in that project here at my blog but links and online references thereto elsewhere on the web, I probably have a greater amount of Capa-related material online under my own name, and a greater number of references and links thereto, than any other scholar researching matters related to Capa.<\/p>\n Thus what appeared to be an evaluation was in fact based on nothing more than basic accounting. Which would serve as yet another reason to distrust AI, and to question the appropriateness of its name.<\/p>\n However, to test a year’s upgrading of AI I asked Gemini the same question on May 14, 2026, just 13 months later. This time it generated a very respectable list including not just myself and Young but also Capa biographers Richard Whelan and Alex Kershaw, Cornell Capa, Charles Herrick, and Michel Lefebvre. Interestingly, each time I pasted that exact query \u2014 who are the intellectual authorities on Robert Capa’s photographic work? \u2014 into a new tab and did a new Google search I got a slightly different answer. Try it yourself.<\/p>\n This indicates that, when used as a research tool, AI exhibits a high level of instability and unrepeatability, making it effectively useless as both a content aggregator and a reliable reference point.<\/p>\n (Not incidentally, Susperregui’s research, “The location of Robert Capa’s Falling Soldier,” published in 2016 in the journal Communication & Society<\/em>, is available here for free pdf download<\/a>. He continues to work on and expand this definitive investigation.)<\/p>\n (To be continued.)<\/p>\n \u2022<\/p>\n![\"International](\"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/artandphoto\/photocritic\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/ICP_Instagram_Capa_D-Day_post_6-6-26.jpg\")
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\nIn response to [a question he posed to Gemini, Google’s AI] about who the intellectual authorities on Robert Capa’s photographic work are, the response was as follows:<\/em><\/p>\n![\"Google](\"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/artandphoto\/photocritic\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/google_logo3.jpeg\"){kind=logo}
So Gemini’s response to this query didn’t speak to the quality of my work, or anyone’s regard for it, but rather to the sheer quantity of it and the number of separate online Capa-related items that include my name (including references to my research) \u2014 as well as the prominence of those among the highest rankings in search-engine queries using the terms “Robert Capa” and “D-Day.”<\/p>\n
![\"Allan](\"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/artandphoto\/photocritic\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/AllanDouglassColeman-poeticlicensepoeticjustice_2020_cover.jpg\")
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