Amongst all the fighting of WWII, war photographers were crucial in shaping the public perception as well as military information of WWII. Most war photographers during this time period were imbued with a sense of Patriotism and often took to photography under enemy lines with their own volition. From this large subset of documentarians, Robert Capa and Margaret Bourke-White were some of the most prominent photographers of WWII for their images and later works.
Robert Capa first worked in post-WWI Germany at
a picture company before moving to Paris due to
the rise of the Nazi party. While in Paris, Capa worked as a photojournalist and made frequent visits to Spain during the 1940s to document the Civil War in progress. There, he took his most iconic photo, “Death of a Loyalist Soldier”, which later prompted Picture Post to call him “the greatest war photographer in the world”. The image itself spurred Capa’s methodology for taking photos, which is summed up in his expression that “If your pictures aren’t good enough, then you aren’t close enough”. This methodology for taking photos was reflected in his photo-taking efforts during the second world war, where he captured close detailed documentation of many Allied invasions, including the Invasion of Normandy. Following the war, Capa co-founded Magnum Photos, which was an agency of international freelance photographers. This organization later aided many upstart photojournalists by providing aid and structure to them.
Margaret Bourke-White was born in New York
Margaret Bourke-White was born in New York
and started her career as an architectural and
industrial photographer, often documenting industrial inventions such as factories and skyscrapers. White was later contracted by Fortune Magazine and traveled to Europe in order to document German factories prior to WWII. There, she also developed a personal interest in documenting the Soviet 5-year plan. This led her to create and document more images based around political messages, later taking images revolving Germany, the Soviet Union, and the American Dustbowl. This generated renown for her ability and photojournalism, causing her to become the first female photojournalist employed by LIFE Magazine. Upon accepting this job, she was sent to Europe during WWII as the first woman allowed to operate in combat zones and the first woman allowed to document the soviet industry. Her ability to radically push the boundaries of what occupations women could have during WWII even led to later historians claiming that White showed other women they “didn't have to settle for the traditional role.”
history.com/news/world-war-ii-iconic-photos
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Robert-Capa
https://www.icp.org/browse/archive/constituents/robert-capa?all/all/all/all/0
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/a-life-less-ordinary-149633500/
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Margaret-Bourke-White
https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2019/08/photography-of-margaret-bourke-white/596980/
history.com/news/world-war-ii-iconic-photos
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Robert-Capa
https://www.icp.org/browse/archive/constituents/robert-capa?all/all/all/all/0
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/a-life-less-ordinary-149633500/
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Margaret-Bourke-White
https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2019/08/photography-of-margaret-bourke-white/596980/
This article brings deserved attention to a class of professionals who go under the radar. I wondered how dangerous a job this realistically was. It turns out America's most famous war correspondent was killed by the Japanese during World War II. He died while reporting on a pacific island called le Shima. He was later honored by the then current president, President Truman.
ReplyDeleteI find the topic of this article very interesting. As Zach mentioned above, I think to photograph in the middle of a war, and sometimes even in the middle of a battle, is something that is as brave as it is commendable. Without these photographers, the public would only have been able to get information from less direct sources, making these photographers important, if not crucial, to the war effort. I researched the salary of these war photographers, and discovered that they all made less than 15,000 a year. Furthermore, they generally had to pay for their own materials. It is really inspiring to see that such selfless people exist.
ReplyDeleteI find this topic really interesting because of how the image of the war presented to the general public is dictated by whether or not photojournalists are successful in their very difficult jobs, even though this aspect of the war is often unaddressed. Another famed photojournalist was Dickey Chapelle, who documented both World War II and the Vietnam War and even became a war correspondent photojournalist for National Geographic during WWII and became the first female photographer to be killed in action. She went great lengths to cover stories in war zones, having covered the violent battles of Iwo Jima and and Okinawa. Women like Chapelle and Margaret Bourke-White as discussed in your post are the epitome of the capabilities and aspirations of women that were often neglected by society.
ReplyDeletehttps://charterforcompassion.org/dickey-chapelle-controversial-war-photojournalist/a-woman-with-balls-and-pearl-earrings