The Bravest War Photographer of All Time...

books:

	• Robert Capa: Photographs Robert Capa Aperture, 2001 - 192 pages average customer review:based on 4 reviews view larger image
	for more information click here

Pure empathy

Ordinary people caught under extraordinary circumstances are what give these images the power that they have and elicit pure empathy from the viewer. Robert Capa earned his place in photographic history and left behind a body of work for us to consider...

The Bravest War Photographer of All Time...

Frank Capa (born Endre Friedmann in 1913) was known as the 'Greatest War-Photographer in the World" when he died in 1954. As a teen, he planned a career as a reporter. Journalsim, he thought, would enable him to combine his loves of politics and literature. In the spring of 1936, he adopted the name Robert Capa, the name of an alter ego, the imaginary character of a glamorous American photographer.

He photographed five wars from '36 to '54. The first was the Spanish Civil War. He'd been sent to Madrid to photograph Juan de la Cierva who, in 1923, had invented a forerunner of the helicopter. He stayed on in Spain because he felt an affinity with the warmth, exuberance, and generosity of the Spanish people. He went to Barcelona, (a penpal in the Fifties came from that area, Sabadell, and was a mill worker who learned his English from American sailors and Frank Sinatra records.), Andalucia, and Cordoba.

General Francisco Franco launched a civil war in July, 1936, which changed Spain forever. He had the courage of his convictions and his photos show a compassionate study of people under extreme stress. He was a photographer of people, which is the opposite of me, as I choose buildings, things, birs, animals, historic places and such for my amateur picture taking.

Unlike his friend Ernest Hemingway, he never felt he had to prove his courage to himself or to anyone else. He was intent on making better pictures, at great risk to his safety. Unlike Hemingway, he was very much a gentleman of the old school, coming from Europe, and "gentlemen don't brag." He believed that one shouldn't tempt fate by bragging.

On the battlefields of Spain, he learned that soldiers use theri terrible weapons of mass destruction only because they have been brainwashed into the ability to 'conceptualize' their victims not as individuals but as a category -- the 'enemy.'

He died in Indochina when he stepped on aa nati-personnel land mine. He was buried by his mother in a Quaker cemetery instead of Arlington National Cemetery, which was an offer she refused.

for more information click here

Amazing photographs

This book has some really amazing photography, they have a really powerful message. I like photos that make me feel something and Robert Capa's photos difinatly do that. Robert Capa was in the right place and the right time with alot of his photos. The only thing the book lacked i feel is more background on the photos.

Capa Photographs

This is a beautiful book by one of the great photographers who shot his dramatic photos right at the frontline of wars. His years in Paris, his friendship and photos of the giants of European art and cultur reflects the recognition he received from his contemporaries. His tragic death in Vietnam was a great loss for everyone interested in his art!

for more information click here

Robert Capa: Photographs is the first true retrospective book of one of the century's greatest photographers. Drawing upon hundreds of previously unseen images, this collection reveals Capa as one of the great poets of the camera. In these photographs, we see through the eyes of a driven humanist who was also a documentarian of the highest caliber. While previous volumes on Capa have focused on his role as a war photographer, Robert Capa: Photographs shows us the remarkable range of his work, which encompasses the sufferings as well as the tenderness, humor and wonder of his subjects.

Robert Capa demonstrated not only a passionate commitment to improving the human condition, but also an unfailing eye for graphic impact. Although his photographs remain the definitive visual records of such momentous events as the siege of Madrid, the bombing of Hankou, and the Allied landings on D-day, many of his images have a timeless and universal quality that transcends the specifics of history. A Spanish soldier recoils at the impact of a bullet, the final instant of his life. In a scene of perfect joy, a group of Chinese children laugh at the sky as snow begins to fall. Four farm workers, hauling all the belongings they can manage, trudge grimly away from an apocalyptic backdrop of smoke and ruins: their war-devastated homes.

Capa's images reveal his profound compassion and perceptiveness about our tenuous human state. As Cornell Capa (Robert's younger brother and the Founding Director Emeritus of the International Center of Photography) writes in his eloquent remembrance: "He managed to travel all over the world, and to communicate his experience and feelings through a universal language: photography." Robert Capa: Photographs also includes a foreword by Capa's close friend Henri Cartier-Bresson, as well as an informative historical essay by Capa biographer Richard Whelan.

At last, here is the book that reveals Robert Capa in a new light. The extraordinary collection of images in Robert Capa: Photographs brings us--through the events of history--to the very heart of humanity.

for more information click here