Robert Capa - The Falling Man
September 5th 1936, Cerro Muriano
Denotation
In this image there is a loyalist soldier at the moment of death. The surroundings appear to be on a hillside in a desert, the grass is thin and wispy. In the distance you can see mountains and a valley in between. The sky is cloudy but the sun is shining because the shadow on the loyalist soldier is very hard on the ground. The soldier is falling to the ground as he dies and he loses grip of the gun in his hand. You cannot see the bullet woundon the soldiers body. There appears to be somekinfod messenger bag on the soldier.
Connotation
Robert Capa was a Hungarian 20th centuary combat photographer and photojournalist who covered five different wars. The photographer died when he stepped on a landmine in southeast Asia, he died with his camera in his hand. My chosen image is titled 'Loyalist malitia man at the moment of death' believed to be taken on September 5th 1936 in Cerro Muriano during the spanish civil war. There has been a long controversy of the authenticity of the photograph a Spanish paper had said it been staged and many beleive the soldier was posing for Capa when the soldier was shot possibly by a sniper. The equipment Capa used for the spanish civil war was a 35mm Leica. Capa's 35mm Leica hand-held camera gave him the mobility necessary to manoeuvre in dangerous situation.
Capa hated conflict, and photographed people on both sides of hostilities as individual victims of the destructive forces of war. When photographing the sufferings of innocent civilians, Capa often turned his lens on the children. Although he rarely photographed the dead or grievously wounded, Capa focused more on the survivors who were caught up in the ordinarities of life when surrounded by a maelstrom of destruction. In all Capa allowed viewers to experience the wars as intimately as if they were right there when it happened. Capa originally wanted to be a writer however he found work in photography in Berlin and grew to love it. He was known to say "If your images aren't good enough, you aren't close enough".
