Capa’s two photos have become iconic images symbolizing inertia, fear and even the failure of nerve of the common soldier on the beaches of Normandy. What a travesty that these men who made decisive contributions to the success of the campaign, despite every danger and hindrance, should have become poster boys for lack of resolve under fire. And all as the result of a caption that told the wrong story. […]
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Since Capa himself provided no notes for his D-Day images, captioning them was left to those who had never witnessed an amphibious assault, much less the Omaha Beach landings. When LIFE’s editors added a caption that was accurate in the macro sense — but wholly inaccurate for that particular scene — they condemned this photo to misreading for decades to come. […] There is no evidence whatsoever to support the claim that Capa’s surviving negatives from D-Day were ever the subject of any emulsion sliding or melting. The slight image displacement on Capa’s film resulted from a mechanical problem commonly experienced in that era: Kodak’s shorter film cassettes caused the film to get transported slightly lower in the camera — exposing the emulsion around the lower edges of the top sprocket holes as they passed over the film gate. […] In the best kinds of journalism today, I always hope that a well-seasoned writer will help his subjects’ points of view to shine through it all. Unfortunately, in this latest exercise from the National Press Photographers Association, Bruce Young and Donald Winslow concentrated too much on their own preconceptions. […] I provided the National Press Photographers Association with timelines and an A-to-Z list of Capa’s D-Day offenses, expecting that these would be effectively condensed in what editor Donald Winslow described as a major feature story for the very next issue of the magazine. Several of my points survive in the nine-page story they created, certainly one of the longest articles I’ve ever seen the magazine publish during my 40 years as a professional photojournalist. Of course I was deeply disappointed when the thrust of my discoveries was diluted, scattered, and dismissed. […] |
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