Thursday, February 18, 2010

Biggest Stories


Capa is recognized for his war photojournalism during World War II. Capa followed World War II across Europe until the liberation of Paris. He was the only photojournalist who was originally from the area of the Central Powers who was working for the Allies. On October 7, 1943, Capa was in the area when the Naples post office was bombed (the Germans had planted a time bomb a few days before in the building). Capa took pictures of the bombing. One hundred people died in the bombing. "In a war, you must hate somebody or love somebody; you must have a position or you cannot stand what goes on, " said Capa. (www.brainyquote.com)

Capa is most famous for his pictures of the Americans storming the Omaha Beach in Normandy, France, on D-Day. Capa swam ashore with the second wave of troops on June 6, 1944, taking pictures from the water. He took 106 pictures, but most of the negatives melted because of a mistake in the darkroom. Life magazine published the photos on June 19, 1944. The pictures were blurry, so the magazine put the pictures with captions that described the pictures as 'slightly out of focus'.

In 1947, after World War II, Capa traveled to the Soviet Union with writer John Steinbeck. He took pictures of the remains of Stalingrad after World War II. Steinbeck wrote descriptions to match the photos.

Capa wrote an autobiography called Slightly Out of Focus (named after the Life captions).Published in 1947, Slightly Out of Focus described Capa's experiences while taking war photos and the devastation of war.


Capa also is known for his work during the Spanish Civil War in 1936. During the Spanish Civil War, Capa took a series of films called the "Mexican Suitcase". Capa lost the "Mexican Suitcase" in 1939 when he escaped from Europe to the U.S., leaving it in Paris. A Mexican general named Franciso Gonzalez was a diplomat in Paris and found the negatives. Capa believed that the pictures were lost when the Germans invaded France in World War II. However, in the April of 2009, the "Mexican Suitcase" was found in Mexico City- it contained thousands of negatives of the Spanish Civil War. The suitcase was actually three cardboard boxes with more than 3,500 negatives. Click here for more information about Robert Capa's work during the Spanish Civil War and his personal background.

Capa also toured Israel after it was founded and took photos for a book called Report on Israel.

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