The founder of military photojournalism Robert Kapa: biography, creativity and interesting facts

For 40 years he has done a lot. He traveled the whole planet, was friends with the most famous writers and intellectuals of his time, for example, with Hemingway and Steinbeck, visited five wars, became the ancestor of the whole genre - military photojournalism. At the same time he was famous as a womanizer, a reveler and a drunkard, survived the death of his beloved woman and girlfriend in war, almost married the most beautiful woman on the planet - the movie superstar - and died on the battlefield with the death of an ordinary soldier. Given that Robert Kapa for a long time did not exist as a person, but was a well-thought-out hoax, one can accept such a biography for a script for a film worthy of an Oscar.

A great future awaits him!

When in 1913 a boy was born in the family of the owners of a fashion studio in the center of Budapest, Dezo and Julia Fridman, they were sure that this would be an extraordinary personality, which will be successful in life. One of the signs of this they saw in a small sign from above - the baby had on his arm an extra finger, which was carefully removed without any consequences for the health and appearance of the boy. The son was named Andre Erno, although after a while he received a nickname, similar to the criminal nickname and became for a while his name - Bundy. It is clear that this Jewish boy from a decent family was distinguished by a violent temperament, a lively mind and disgust for quiet quiet life.

30th years have come. Hungary became one of the countries where the fascists came to power, and Bundy immediately got involved in a protest movement against the Horthy regime. After the arrest and prosecution of the police, he left Hungary and in 1931 entered the University of Berlin at the Faculty of Journalism. But there was no money to continue studying, and Bundy got a job at photo agency Die Foto. The energy and sociability of the young man did not go unnoticed, and soon he was entrusted with shooting important political events, which at that turbulent time was enough throughout Europe.

First success

Speaking in December 1932 in Copenhagen, Leon Trotsky, expelled by Stalin from the country and feared attempts, banned any photography. But the young photographer André Fridman managed to take a few pictures, which were published by many leading European publications. This was the first real success of a beginner photojournalist. He begins to be defined with the basic principles of his profession, the main one of which he will voice later, already as Robert Kapa: "If your pictures are not very good - it means you were not close enough!"

He himself was in 1933 in the very center of events, in the center of the boiler, in which the future tragedy of the world's largest war was brewing: Nazis came to power in Germany. A Jewish photojournalist with left-wing views to be in Berlin became dangerous to life, and he moves to France, to Paris. There in 1935, as he himself joked, "at the age of 22 years is born" the future founder of military photojournalism Robert Kapa. "Father" can be considered Andre Friedman, but he was, as expected, "mother."

Gerda Tarot

Their meeting was pure coincidence. When André invited as one model a pretty girl, as well as he, who fled from the Nazis, she, having a groom and knowing the reputation of a handsome photographer, took a girlfriend with her. She was a German Jew with Polish roots, and her name was Gerda Pogorilaya. The honor of the model did not suffer, but Gerda could not resist the charms of the donjuan. It turned out that they are colleagues, and Gerda, like Andre, is trying to make a living by photojournalism. Career Andre was hampered by a poor knowledge of French and the presence in Paris of another photo reporter named Fridman. Soon, together, they are developing a smart marketing move.

The essence of their hoax was, as it should be, simple and ingenious. Instead of no known Jewish photographers who are not wanted by any solid publication, a famous and charming photographer from faraway America should appear, where his photos are snapped up by the most influential newspapers and magazines, and his affairs are handled by a special agent, in combination - also Photojournalist, young girl of leftist convictions. Soon in the Paris press began to appear surprisingly topical and sharp, often scandalous photo-reports, signed by the colorful name Robert Capa (Robert Capa). Negotiations with the editorial offices were conducted by his manager - Gerda Taro, who also sometimes sent her work. Young people opened a photo agency that won great fame, where the mythical American was co-owner, and Taro - his secretary and manager.

The war in Spain

The hoax was revealed when, having moved to New York, they tried to extradite the owner of their photo agency for the famous Frenchman. But he was already truly famous, and since then Robert Capa has acquired flesh and blood and a pretty impressive appearance. To cover the beginning of the civil war in Spain, Robert and Gerda went as famous photographers, with names that did not need advertising and hoaxes. In addition to professional interest, on the fields of the beginning struggle against fascism they were called upon and quite certain sympathy with the leftist, socialist ideas, which at that time distinguished many thinking people throughout the world.

The first war, shot by Robert Kapa, became for him and the first experience, during which he practiced methods of obtaining photographs that possessed not only documentary accuracy, but also high emotionality and enormous power of influence on the audience. His pictures always featured an undisguised personal attitude to what is happening - sympathy and respect for one character, contempt and disgust for others. Personal courage and energy allowed Cape to take pictures that smelled of gunpowder and sounded with rifles of shells, and luck and artistic inclinations make them memorable and impressive documents of history.

The most famous shot

On September 5, 1936, Capa was in the trenches of Republicans in the Sierra Morena mountain range. The mood of the fighters who opposed the Franco was not important. Loyalists, that is, supporters of the republic, who defended the legitimate authority from the rebels of General Franco, knew that their enemy had received new German automatic weapons, which allowed shooting with unprecedented intensity.

Subsequently, Kapa recalled that when the command of the Loyalist command began to launch an attack and the soldiers began to rise from the shelters, loud machine-gun fire rang out. The photographer realized his "Lake" above the trench and blindly pressed the trigger. When the negative sent by Kapa to the agency was manifested, in many publications a photo was published, later called the most famous photograph in the world, made during the fighting. There were various testimonies and studies that spoke about the staging nature of the picture, about the immorality of the staging undertaken by Kapa. The controversy does not stop until now, but the essence of the photo taken by photographer Robert Kapa does not change this: the ordinaryity of the moment of death captured by the camera shows the most terrible - anti-human - unnaturalness of war.

A loss

In the summer of 1937, in a retreating column of Republicans, near the Madrid suburb of Brunete, the tank accidentally crushed a truck with the wounded. In it was a friend and companion of Kapa - Gerda Taro. The next day - July 26 - she died of her injuries. The loss greatly influenced Robert. His friends remembered that he really could not recover from this until the very end. Now he had to work alone in an agency born of their joint plan, but most importantly, he lost his beloved friend, with whom, according to some reports, he was going to find family happiness.

For the next war, he leaves alone. The photos taken by Kapa in China, when the invasion of the Japanese army began in 1938, introduced Europeans and Americans not only to the exotic region of the Earth, but also served as a terrible foreshadowing that the flame of the world war was inflaming with renewed vigor, and to stay aside It will be possible to anybody.

World War II

The peculiarity of American legislation on obtaining citizenship led in 1940 to a paradoxical situation with the already famous photo reporter. Formally, Kapa remained a citizen of Hungary, an ally of fascist Germany and an opponent of the anti-Hitler coalition. At the same time, during the entire war he was an official employee of the most influential American magazine LIFE. In this capacity, he participated in the most bloody operation of American expeditionary forces in Europe - in the landing of Allied forces in Normandy.

Subsequently, in the famous book "The Hidden Perspective" by Robert Kapa, a truthful and frightening description of June 6, 1944, conducted by him in the area of the Norman coast sector, designated on US military maps as the Omaha Beach sector, was posted. He was the only journalist in the most dangerous place to land an American landing. He was at terrible risk every second, moving along with ordinary soldiers under the terrible fire that the Germans led from the heights overhanging the shore.

Kapa shot several cassettes of film, having managed to save them from bullets, splinters and falling into the water. Further, a real shock awaited him: due to the oversight of the laboratory assistant who showed the materials from Normandy in the editorial office of Life magazine in London, almost the entire survey was lost. Only 11 frames remained, which had various technical defects. Unexpectedly contained in them fuzzy, blurring, stains gave the photos such expressiveness that they bypassed all the world's leading media and became classics of photo art.

Agency "Magnum"

The post-war glory of the most famous photo chronicler of the United States did not change the way of life of Robert Kapa. He was friends with artists and writers, fell in love without a memory in the movie stars. The most famous diva of that time, the stunning Ingrid Bergman, was ready to marry him if he stopped traveling to military conflict zones. As a result, they parted.

In 1947, the Magnum photo agency was founded, headed by Robert Kapa. Classics photoarties - Henri Cartier-Beresson, David Seymour, George Roger - who joined him, had the goal of creating a leading association of photo-documentaries, capable of describing events anywhere in the world with the necessary quality and speed. This goal was achieved, despite the difficult times overcome by the agency.

Wars after the war

Robert Capa, biography, photographs, books of which are full of terrible materials from the fields of military battles, liked to shoot and peaceful life, finding stories that became classics. In 1949, he made a trip to the USSR, which was an attempt to open the lowered "Iron Curtain" from the outside.

But the main occupation was military photojournalism. Kapa continued to go where the shots rattled. In 1948, he covers the events of the war declared by the Arab states to the new state of Israel.

The last photo of the reporter Robert Cap was made May 25, 1954 in Indochina. It shows how the American soldiers gingerly walk around the riddled section of the road. In a moment, an explosion of an anti-personnel mine will be heard, ending the life of the famous photojournalist.