Robert Capa

[Cholentpot]

You may remember photo critic A.D. Coleman. He still goes on about it at length on his website, Photocritic International.

Sure, let's discuss it. But I'm so blown away by those pictures that everything else seems moot.

Coleman put into words and research into what I thought. As an American I'm a sucker for a talltale. I love 'em. It's as American as apple pie. If you're gonna fib make it a good one.

 

[Alex Benjamin]

fact is that these were the best war pictures ever made.

Curious to know how you define "best" in this case.

Do you mean best WW2 pictures, or best of any war photography? Vietnam war photography, for example, is different than WW2 photography because, at least it seems to me, photographers focused more on individual drama than action, but I would have a hard time rating different photographers or photos.

 

[Paul Howell]

In addition the D Day Photos there is still debate if Capa faked the falling soldier in the Spanish Civil War.

 

[cowanw]

Personally I prefer the images of the actual first photographers, Bud Roos and Don Grant.
On the morning of June 6, photographer Don Grant and cameraman Bud Roos landed first with the Royal Winnipeg Rifles, while cameraman Bill Grant and photographer Frank Dubervill were sent in with the Queen’s Own Rifles. The Canadians scooped D-Day—correspondent Ross Munro’s written account and Bill Grant’s film footage made it to North America before any others.

 

[OAPOli]

In addition the D Day Photos there is still debate if Capa faked the falling soldier in the Spanish Civil War.

Apparently he did? More pictures from that time period were found. The background matched that of the falling soldier pic and it was determined they were shot at a location far from the battle were Capa claimed he was. Those additional pictures also looked staged.

 

[Paul Howell]

From what I recall when I took PJ in college in the 60s there was a chapter that discussed how common staging war photos was, including Matthew Brady in the American Civil war. He had his crew move and rearrange bodies to increase the appearance of battle. Of course with cameras and plates of the day live action was not possible.

 

[Arthurwg]

Curious to know how you define "best" in this case.

Just my subjective humble opinion, of course. I can't really imagine an objective way of defining it. But I've looked at lots of war pictures over the decades and these are the ones that move me the most. They are absolutely profound. They really feel like being in the action. Others may disagree.

 

[snusmumriken]

I got rid of my copy of Magnum Contact Sheets because I found it surprisingly boring and it occupied too much shelf space. I can't remember whether any Robert Capa photos featured in there. But whoever owns the negatives, I can't see any reason for not making them available to researchers. Photographers are not obliged to reveal the back-story to their images, but in this case keeping them hidden away just reinforces suspicion.

 

[Paul Howell]

"Photographers are not obliged to reveal the back-story to their images, "

That depends, when a working PJ I were required to keep notes, the backstory is part of the story, who where, when, what and why. In today's digital world where is it easy to add or enhance an image the back story, when, where, who, what and why are part of authentication of an image.

 

[Bill Burk]

I got rid of my copy of Magnum Contact Sheets because I found it surprisingly boring and it occupied too much shelf space. I can't remember whether any Robert Capa photos featured in there. But whoever owns the negatives, I can't see any reason for not making them available to researchers. Photographers are not obliged to reveal the back-story to their images, but in this case keeping them hidden away just reinforces suspicion.

They probably threw away the blank film which had no images. I think it would have told the story. Sprocket strain and scratches would have given evidence of being put through a camera. And how many rolls Capa sent in. But nobody in their right mind in the moment would have had enough foresight to save blank film for historic importance.

 

[Cholentpot]

I'm young enough to have no vested interest into Capa's stories or tales. Many view him as a hero and will defend his honor. Me? I just want to know how the emulsion magically melted off the film.

 

[Sirius Glass]

I'm young enough to have no vested interest into Capa's stories or tales. Many view him as a hero and will defend his honor. Me? I just want to know how the emulsion magically melted off the film.

1. It cannot melt off
2. If the water is too hot, it can slide off. Some places use this to remove the emulsion off a print so that they can transfer it on to a wood base.

 

[Bill Burk]

I'm young enough to have no vested interest into Capa's stories or tales. Many view him as a hero and will defend his honor. Me? I just want to know how the emulsion magically melted off the film.

Sirius is right.

I couldn't get it to melt off.

But I did get wild twisty curling when I dipped in acetone/alcohol and dried in heat.



That's what I think happened to the whole cabinet of film.

 

[Cholentpot]

Sirius is right.

I couldn't get it to melt off.

But I did get wild twisty curling when I dipped in acetone/alcohol and dried in heat.



That's what I think happened to the whole cabinet of film.

Was this standard procedure in the 40's to dry film?

1. It cannot melt off
2. If the water is too hot, it can slide off. Some places use this to remove the emulsion off a print so that they can transfer it on to a wood base.

This is done with 35mm film? I've seen emulsion transfers with peel apart polaroid.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Was this standard procedure in the 40's to dry film?


This is done with 35mm film? I've seen emulsion transfers with peel apart polaroid.

I posted about emulsion on paper, but it will happen on any format film.

 

[Bill Burk]

Was this standard procedure in the 40's to dry film?

Ether/alcohol yes. They wanted to get the film to dry fast so the water gets displaced, and the ether/alcohol evaporates fast. It was a newspaper/photojournalism thing. Not so much a hobby/normal photofinishing option.

 

[MattKing]

I worked as a darkroom technician one summer during the late 1970s for the Vancouver Sun newspaper - one of the two major dailies in the city.
At that time, the Sun was an afternoon newspaper.
I was tasked with receiving a 35mm film from one of the staff photographers who had photographed an event that morning. I was required to develop it, choose a useful frame or two that would illustrate the story/event, print those frames, get the prints at least minimally washed and dried and get the prints into the hands of a copy runner ASAP, while the presses were held, pending insertion of the necessary image into that edition.
Hundreds of people and millions of dollars worth of equipment were waiting for that picture.
So yes, rapid drying in a photo-journalism context was really a thing!
We didn't use alcohol. We used forced air!
As it turned out, the shots were crummy, due substantially to wretched light and the circumstances surrounding the subjects - Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos, at the Vancouver airport - and the best composed frames were poorly focused. The art desk ended up running something else.

 

[Helge]

Ether/alcohol yes. They wanted to get the film to dry fast so the water gets displaced, and the ether/alcohol evaporates fast. It was a newspaper/photojournalism thing. Not so much a hobby/normal photofinishing option.

Also an option if you are pretreating and/or removing anti halation and need the film to dry fast and evenly.

 

[lxdude]

And after such a harrowing shoot why would you trust sending them off in a bundle? Every single navel vessel had a darkroom capable of everything needed for processing. The story doesn't pan out under scrutiny.

He was freelancing for Life, a private entity. It could be that the military darkrooms were for military only, or Life didn't want to chance getting them mixed up with military photographers' work, or there would not have been the desired immediacy because the military's photos had priority or because the military wasn't in a hurry to develop photos because they were rather busy with other things.
Just sayin'

 

[lxdude]

Is a Pil-i-grim an unhappy Pillsbury doughboy?

Doughboys were World War I

 

[reddesert]

I've read the A.D. Coleman "expose" on Robert Capa more than once as Coleman's advertised it several places over the Internet. IMO, Coleman starts off okay - the melted emulsion darkroom mishap story doesn't really add up, maybe Capa made some other camera mistake under pressure - and then he goes on a misguided crusade to attempt to debunk every other detail of Capa's behavior on D-day, as if Cornell Capa was hiding the truth that Robert faked the moon landing photos.

Coleman's rhetorical strategy is to pile up small inconsistencies - maybe Robert got off the beach after 15 minutes instead of an hour, maybe the soldier in the water is identified wrong - to build an aura of doubt. Unfortunately for this project, nobody really questions that Capa was on the beach at D-day and the photos are actually of D-day. The rest is desk-jockeying 60 years after the fact.

 

[Don_ih]

Maybe the emulsion was ruined by a neophyte using undiluted acid stop on it. (Actually, just tried that - did nothing to old (but undeveloped) Tri-X.)

 

[snusmumriken]

Sirius is right.

I couldn't get it to melt off.

But I did get wild twisty curling when I dipped in acetone/alcohol and dried in heat.



That's what I think happened to the whole cabinet of film.

Where did the acetone idea come from? I've not heard of that before. And which alcohol did you use?

In my youth (spent in a school close to Fleet Street), press photographers sometimes dried prints by dipping in methanol and lighting it. This allowed prints to be rushed in-house to the layout team or sent urgently (by teleprinter, I think) to London from remote parts of the world. I tried this drying method, and it worked nicely, with single-weight paper. Meths burns at quite a low temperature, so at a pinch (excuse pun) you can hold the print between thumb and forefinger while the meths burns off, and you won't get serious burns even if your fingers are also wet with meths. No suggestion of the emulsion shifting off the paper, but the edges could be a little smoky, and I did drop a few prints to burn themselves out on the darkroom floor, between me and the only exit. Still, the floor was concrete, and a meths flame is easily extinguished.

Ethanol, propanol, or an acetone/alcohol mix, would presumably burn hotter than meths alone. So I doubt either would be suited for this incendiary technique, although they may speed up air-drying. Others have already mentioned drying cabinets, which were little more than tall steel lockers with rails at the top and a heat source down below. Films were hung with clips top and bottom to prevent curling. I've seen photos of loaded cabinets with no bottom clips, but I'm not surprised that your single negative curled up when heated, Bill.

But I also know that in an urgent situation prints were sometimes made in newspaper darkrooms from negatives that were still wet. The uncut film was shoved straight into the enlarger, with the rolled ends of the film supported by those funny curved wings that all enlargers used to have. I imagine this scratched the hell out of the negatives, but it was all about selling the day's newspaper, not about building a historical archive. My point is that there was really no need to get Capa's negatives dry, if speed was of the S (to quote PG Wodehouse).

If any darkroom newbie had been in doubt how to dry Capa's negatives quickly, I reckon meths and a cigarette lighter would have come to mind first. So I'm quite intrigued about what happens to wet film dipped in meths (alone) and set on fire. I don't seem to have any meths in the cupboard, otherwise I would try it straight away. But I am going shopping later ...

 

[Paul Howell]

In the 60s while college we just the took the story of the emulsion drying accident at face value until our darkroom instructor told us that it was very unlikely. We had a very old donated film drying cabinet, might have dated to the 20s, it used a heating element and forced air. Over the years someone added a filter and new seals for the door. It just could not get hot enough to melt the film. But if film was taken from a very cold wash and put into the hot cabinet there was a small chance that the film might reticulate.

 

[snusmumriken]

Well, this is what happens to Ilford Delta 100 when wetted for 5 minutes, dunked in meths, and set afire. Took about 3 seconds for the film base to corkscrew like this and for the flame to go out. The emulsion is lovely and dry and the image would be printable if the backing wasn't distorted. Absolutely no sign of the emulsion slipping.

I seem to recall that Delta films have a different film base to older film types like FP4/HP5, and maybe in Capa's day they were different again? All the same, no emulsion slippage.

It doesn't really matter, IMHO. Whatever the reason, it must have been gutting to have been to Hell and only have a couple of pictures to show.