War Photograpy.
After looking at the photographs that emerged from 9/11 it was clear what photography I should look into next. War photograph and war photographs are probably the most shocking documentation of mankind’s existence and potentially the most shocking and upsetting material you will ever see. But that doesn’t stop us being fascinated with the images that were taken at war time or on the battle field. I have been researching into some of the most famous war images and war photographers to find out more about the shocking images they took during war time.
Robert Capa
I couldn’t look at war photograph without looking at Robert Capa, he covered five different wars including the Spanish Civil War, the Second Sino-Japanese War, World War II, the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, and the First Indochina War. His images of war are unparalleled most like for the fact that he wanted to be right there in the action, he was even quoted as saying “If your pictures aren’t good enough, you aren’t close enough”. His lake of self preservation most likely lead to his untimely death when, during his documentation of the Indochina war he stepped on a land mine, whilst photographing the action on a battlefield. But this lake of self preservation and the fact that he appeared to have no care for his own safety lead to him capturing some of the most famous images of all time. Capa is most known for two sets of images, the first is the image he took during his documentation of the Spanish civil war “death of a loyalist solider”. And the other set of images are the photographs he took during the D-Day landings when he was actually on the beaches at Normandy.
In 1936 Capa became known across the globe for a photo he took on the Cordoba Front of a Loyalist Militiaman who had just been shot and was in the act of falling to his death. There was a long controversy about the authenticity of this photograph. In the end historians stepped in and eventually succeeded in identifying the dead soldier as Federico Borrell García and proved that Capa had not staged the photograph and it was in fact authentic. This image is shocking because we are watching the death of another human but it again like the falling man images, like the fire on….street and like the execution of the Vietnamese prisoner it has the subjects last few seconds of life freeze framed in time. Because of Capa’s insistence to right in with the action and proximity to the solider at the time, and his brilliant timing he managed to capture an image unlike to my knowledge anyone had or has taken since.
As I said the other photographs that Capa is most known for are the images he sent back from his time on the beach are Normandy right in the middle of the D-Day landings capa was the only photographer known to be present at the actual time of the landings and on the beach. He actually managed to shoot 4 roll of film but only one of those rolls survived to be developed. Most of the photographs on that roll are blurred and out of focus but the fact that Capa managed to take any photographs and even more amazingly that he made it back alive, shows a man truly dedicated to his “art”.
Dmitri Baltermants
Another very famous war photographer was Dmitri Baltermants. Has was a prominent Soviet-era photojournalist. Baltermants first trained to become a math teacher, but fell in love with photography and began a career in the field of photojournalism. He worked with a number of different newspapers and magazines but he took most of his most memorable images during World War II, when he covered the battle of Stalingrad, and the battles of the Red Army in Ukraine, Poland and in Germany, ultimately reaching Berlin in 1945. Like his fellow photographers covering the Red Army during the war, Baltermants’ images were always censored by Soviet authorities in order to select only the ones that reflected on the positive sides of service in order to help boost morale, so basically images that could be used for propaganda . Some of his most captivating and now famous photos hidden from public view and only became public much later in the 1960s.
One of Baltermants most famous photographs that only surfaced in the 60’s is his image which he entitled “Grief”, the horrific and frankly heart breaking image depicts a 1942 Nazi massacre in the Crimean village of Kerch. It shows the women of the village searching through the seemingly countless bodies looking for their loved ones. I have to say I always find this image hard to look at, it is that powerful and shocking that it very nearly reduces me to tears. For me the worst thing in this image is not the bodies in photograph, they are shocking enough. Its the two ladies at near the front of the image, ones looks like she has found her loved one and is doubled up and I can imagine in hysterical tears and the other lady to the right of the picture who looks like she has discovered her loved one at the moment the photograph was taken. I think anyone one who has suffered bereavement or loss can in some way relate to this image it is just raw power or the reality of it all that is so shocking
