An interesting view of Capa’s falling man

A Chinese-speaking  blogger and photophile , Alex Ng, has linked to my post about the famous Robert Capa photographs of the falling Republican soldier from 1936/37.

I’ve raised the issue of the veracity of the Spanish Civil War image which purports to show a Republican soldier, identified as Federico Borrell Garcia,  at the moment he is hit by a fascist bullet.

I think there are some unresolved issues here, including the ethics of war reporting.

Alex’s original post is in Chinese and the translation machines just make garble of what is no doubt excellent Chinese prose. So, I won’t insult anyone with a machine translation. Suffice to post this interesting photoshop image, which you can argue over.

The post in Chinese is here: Monologue on Photography.  If any one cares to provide a readable translation, I’d be happy to post it.

I’m not sure that this proves anything. As I have written recently, particularly about the Barbican exhibition which finishes this week, the two falling soldier images seem to be of different men – variations in uniform, particularly the leather webbing, seem to suggest that they are not the same person.

A photoshopped composite of two falling soldiers