
The Capa "falling soldier" image - real or not?
Well, the controversy around Robert Capa’s “falling soldier” image from the Spanish civil war is not settled yet. A Spanish newspaper is now saying that the image was staged. AFP is now running the story globally.
A similar piece appeared in The Guardian a few weeks ago, but didn’t generate the same interest.
Regular readers of Ethical Martini will be aware that I have long been arguing that the photograph was staged. So I’m not really surprised that this is running again.
I said recently that we would have to wait to see what fresh evidence might emerge from the Mexican suitcase before it can be finally resolved.
In May this year the New York International Center for Photography, which houses the Capa archives, reported it could not find the negative for this image in the Mexican suitcase which did contain many Spanish civil war photographs.
One interesting note from the AFP story:
El Periodico said it based its study on an exhibition–launched in New York in 2007 and now in Barcelona –of 150 Capa photos taken in conflicts during the 1930s and 1940s.
I saw this exhibition at the Barbican Centre in London last year and I wrote extensively on the series that includes “falling man” #1 and “falling man” #2.
I first wrote about the Capa image in 2007. I’ve always had doubts.
En Francais, Andre Gunthert: “Capa vs Google Earth”
En Espanol, farodevigo.es: La mítica fotografía del miliciano de Capa puede ser falsa
For photojournalism students, if you want to see a reasonably interesting discussion about the ethics of the image, click on over to A Photo Editor.
Some student views on ethical fault lines
May 4, 2007Te Waha Nui Online – AUT
My colleague, Associate Professor David Robie, has posted some interesting student work on ethical dilemmas on the Te Waha Nui website.The commentaries are from an assignment set in the AUT journalism paper Public Affairs Reporting.
Students have tackled some interesting topics:
Congratulations to Spike, Sarah G, Charlotte, Pricscilla, Eleanor, Todd and Sarah L.
It’s good to see that journalism students don’t lose their sense of ethics and their idealism when confronted with some of the less seemly aspects of their chosen profession. Let’s hope that as the new generation comes into its own in the newsrooms of the future that these lessons are not forgotten.