Photojournalism War Photography
Robert Capa
Robert Capa was a war photographer and photojournalist who worked for life magazine and covered five wars including world war 2 using a Leica camera, his images became iconic as he was able to capture divisive moments from war like the falling solider which showed people the reality of war as the image had a Spanish solider falling to his death after he was shot. Capa had the freedom to cover the wars he wanted to take pictures from and most of his photos would show the action as it is happening.
Working for life magazine gave Capa celebrity status and people would believe all his photos were genuine as his name on the photo was like a stamp of authenticity. even though he had freedom to take what ever picture he wanted, life magazine probably would have censored some of his images as they may not have been appropriate to show to people at the time, I think that life magazine would have effected his images in some way as most of his images are clean and do not show too much violence, they rather show the events before or as they are happening.
Tony Vaccaro
Tony Vaccaro was also a war photographer and photojournalist, but unlike Capa he was a GI in the 83rd Infantry Division which meant Vaccaro would have fought in wars as well as taking pictures of brutal realities of world war 2 and its aftermath, he used a Argus C-3 camera to take his pictures, The challenges he faced included a shortage of 35mm film and the
distinct lack of battlefield darkrooms. Whenever his regiment entered a town, he headed for the nearest
camera shop or pharmacy and took whatever photography equipment he
required. The development process was improvised, The developer was poured into a borrowed helmet
while he used his own helmet for fixing the chemical that preserves the
negatives. Some of the images he sent back to America confiscated by a military censor because they included images of dead Americans which where not appropriate to show to the American people.
I think that because he was a solider his images would have been very true and would show the reality of war and show people how brutal war was, but this would have been a disadvantage to him as some of his more graphic images like an image of a dying solider under a tank would have been destroyed so he may have not had the freedom that Capa had even though he was closerand more true to war.
The Execution - Eddie Adams
Photographer Eddie
Adams captured an image of Nguyen Ngoc Loan, South Vietnam's national police
chief executing a prisoner, this image was very impactful as it showed the
prisoner with a gun to his head seconds before he was executed and the image
contains the brutal reality of war, the execution was also captured in video
form and we can actually see the prisoner getting shot.
Both the image and
the video footage have a big impact but the image is more impactful and disturbing
as it is frozen just before the man is shot, this gives the image more depth as
everyone who sees the image will know what will happen next, the image also
contains more emotion as the prisoner and executioners faces are paused and we
can see the fear in the prisoners face and the cold dark look of the national
police chief, the emotion is very clear in the photograph because the quality of it is better than the video footage, however the voice over in the video gives us more information which the photo does not.
The video has almost
the same impact as the image but in the footage the execution is over very fast
and you don’t get time to see the emotion and depth that the photograph has,
the quality of the video is also not as clear as the image which may make it
harder to identify what is happening in the footage until it is over, however the video does a
better job of showing us the situation and environment because the video
continues after the execution showing us the man fall, also we see that the national
police chief isn’t hesitant when he pulls the trigger which shows us the harshness
of this moment.
