In 1932, when Robert Capa’s career began, photographers were viewed as documentarians. Their names were often omitted from magazines, captions under their pictures were riddled with typos, and negatives and prints were frequently lost. Four years later, that changed.
In 1936, Capa went to Spain to capture the horrors of the Spanish Civil War. Hungarian by birth, his short stature and dark complexion allowed him to blend in among the Southern troops. He used a handheld camera to shoot the action from chillingly close proximity. When the photographs were published in the U.K. magazine Picture Post, the editor summarized: “We present these pictures as simply the finest pictures of front-line action ever taken.” Capa didn’t invent photojournalism, but he ushered it into the modern era.
