What pictures, existing and merely reported by the photographer and others, did Robert Capa make at Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944, and what do they have to tell us? We know (from the caption notes he sent to John Morris in London with his films that he returned from Normandy) that three of the four 35mm rolls he sent he’d actually made on shipboard the night before. That leaves only one roll of images from the landing itself. […]
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Despite the claims by John Morris, Robert Capa, and others that he made 106 exposures at Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944, the actual evidence — the negatives themselves, and Capa’s own caption notes — verifies that he exposed only one roll there before running away, making a maximum of 36 exposures, of which only 11 were successful and survived. The rest of his D-Day take constituted nothing more than pre-battle stock shots with negligible historic value, generically replicated by every photographer on every ship heading to Normany that night. […] Film left in my darkroom drying cabinet for almost two hours at temperatures that ranged from 80°F to 150°F — and between 135°F-150°F for an hour — remained intact. So I feel confident in asserting that the emulsion of gelatin-silver film, in 1944 as today, did not and does not melt and run down its acetate backing after just a few minutes in a closed wooden cabinet heated even to 150°F by any simple, off-the-shelf heating unit. This is a fiction. […] Contrary to picture editor John Morris’s narrative, these “damaged” frames actually show us samples of film that has received proper development, fixing, and drying. They also appear to have suffered drastic in-camera overexposure. If they typify the three rolls that held Capa’s estimated 106 exposures from Omaha Beach, then all but the “Magnificent Eleven” frames arrived at LIFE‘s London offices irreversibly overexposed (by Capa himself) in their pupal or latent-image stage. […] |
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Alternate History: Robert Capa on D-Day (6)
Robert Capa unquestionably had the skills required to make astonishing images at Omaha Beach on D-Day. He presented himself with his camera and lens at the historic setting from which he could have derived such images. But he pressed the shutter release a mere 11 times; that’s all he registered on his one roll of D-Day film. On this crucial occasion, the opportunity of a lifetime, he failed himself, his picture editor, his publisher, his public, and history itself. […]