Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Module 5: From Robert Fenton's combat photographs to Robert Capa's war photography


Look at the photos of Fenton, Brady, Gardner and Capa, read about their work and try to find/see similarities and differences and explain how and why is Capa different than others.


Roger Fenton, Mathew Brady, Alexander Garner and Robert Capa were the most known photographers or photojournalist of war, and had various differences in the way they capture images and on whom or what to capture.

Roger Fenton was the first one to document a war through medium photography, his photos was mainly used by the governments policy or propaganda. Most of his photographs are scenes of devastating effects of the war. He used salt paper to print his images, and this is the reason why he wasn't able to sell most of his photos, because it has the tendency to fade.




Mathew Brady was the father of photojournalism; he was the first to undertake photography documentation of American civil war. Most his photos are well known or the influential figures of the American war. With the help of other twenty photographers they captured the photographic history of the civil war.




Alexander Gardner works as a shadow of Brady during the American civil war. Brady used his photos, which is why he wasn't famous for his own photos. After being and assistant of Brady, Gardner made it up to make a campaign picture of army Potomac. He was the first one to publish a collection of civil war photographs called “Gardner’s photography sketch book of the war”.




Robert Capa was known to be the greatest war photographer of the world. His style of capturing image was different from Fenton, Brady and Gardner because he literally joined the soldiers during the war; how the dress, where they go, and what they do, every single thing the soldiers does he was there to capture the greatest and worst events of the battle. The risk he took on joining the battle to photograph paid him back as he became the greatest photographer. He said “if your photographs aren’t good enough you’re not close enough” and he stand on these words, he showed that making a good photograph is capturing the finest scenes during the actual war. Like most of his controversial picture “falling soldier” this captured a Spanish soldier to the instant when a bullet drops him.




Robert Capa was different from other photographers simply because he was the one who took risk on getting up close during the actual battle to photograph. He died with sacrificing his own life to photograph the greatest scene of the war. Capa on the other hand, was different from the other war photography because he didn’t think of any danger he captured soldiers battling in the war to show that it was the reality. He became the powerful symbol of war by letting his life in great danger just to capture the war and how the soldiers fight to save the country.

Similarities between these four photographers were that they all took pictures about war. They captured the reality in war and they all showed people the danger and fears in wars. In addition, they also shoot photos of famous people of their times including Abraham Lincoln and the photos of the British Royal Family. All four of them contributed not only to our nation but in the history of photography.

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