Robert Capa

Robert Capa was born in Hungary but spent most of his life in the United States. He photographed many wars and eventually was killed in the French Indochina War.

From 1936 to 1939, he was in Spain, photographing the Spanish Civil War. In 1936, he became known across the globe for a photo he took on the Cordoba Front of a Loyalist Militiaman who had just been shot and was in the act of falling to his death, seen on this page. This is one of the best-known pictures of the Spanish civil war.

At the start of World War II, Capa was in New York City. He had moved there from Paris to look for new work and to escape Nazi persecutions. The war took Capa to various parts of the European Theatre on photography assignments. He first photographed for Collier's Weekly, before switching to Life after he was fired by the former. When first hired, he was a citizen of Hungary, but he was also Jewish, which allowed him to negotiate visas to Europe. He was the only "enemy alien" photog rapher for the Allies. On October 7, 1943, Robert Capa was in Naples with Life reporter Will Lang Jr. and photographed the Naples post office bombing.
His most famous work occurred on June 6, 1944 (D-Day) when he swam ashore with the first assault wave on Omaha Beach. He was armed with two Contax II cameras mounted with 50 mm lenses and several rolls of spare film. Capa took 108 pictures in the first couple of hours of the invasion. However, a staff member at Life made a mistake in the darkroom; he set the dryer too high and melted the emulsion in the negatives. Only eight frames in total were recovered.