- Hungarian war photographer and photojournalist, 1913
"I HOPE TO STAY UNEMPLOYED AS A WAR PHOTOGRAPHER TIL THE END OF MY LIFE" -Robert Capa
Many consider Capa to be the greatest combat and adventure photographer in history mainly due to his work documenting wars and risking his life on multiple occasions to get a photo. He became a photojournalist as he watched Hitler rise to power leading him to move to Paris to begin working with fellow photographer Gerta Pohorylle, as a photojournalist under the alias 'Robert Capa' - he was born André Friedmann in Budapest.
During Capa's lifetime, he covered five wars: The Spanish Civil War, The Second Sino-Japanese War, World War II (across Europe), The 1948 Arab-Israeli War and the First Indochina War, often making the front page with his photos on numerous major magazines and newspapers. However, he is most famous for risking his life to take a photo on D-Day as he was the only civilian photographer on Omaha Beach that day, bringing a whole new scale to photography and being pivotal for the growth of documentary photography and photojournalism, inspiring various generations shaping photography today.
In 1947, Capa was awarded the medal of Freedom by U.S. general Dwight D. Eisenhower for his work recoding the Second World War as he documented the course of it in London, North Africa, Italy and the Liberation of Paris and how each area was impacted by the conflict by sticking his neck on the line to take risk-taking photos to portray the strife. In the same year, 1947, Capa also introduced Magnum Photos in Paris, acting as co-founder. This was the first organisation that worked as a cooperative agency for worldwide freelance photographers. Due to his undeniable influences, Hungary has issued a stamp and a gold coin in his honour.
I love Capa's work because its interesting to see war-documentary photography at its first stages, it allows me to see how it has expanded over the years and predict how it will change in the future. I Love the images he produces, how they convey movement and passion. His photos also makes me miss the old photography, the grainy images blurred with movement. Photography has changed so much since his time but I still believe this style/age of photography should still be exercised today on a wider scale.