100 PHOTOGRAPHS 101
THE FALLING SOLDIER by Robert Capa
Robert Capa made his seminal photograph of the Span-
ish Civil War without ever looking through his viewfinder.
Widely considered one of the best combat photographs ever
made, and the first to show battlefield death in action, it was
taken while Capa was in the trenches with Republican mi-
litiamen, he said in a 1947 radio interview. The men would
pop aboveground to charge and fire old rifles at a machine
gun manned by troops loyal to Francisco Franco. Each
time, the militiamen would get gunned down. During one
charge, Capa held his camera above his head and clicked
the shutter. The result is an image that is full of drama and
movement as the shot soldier tumbles backward.
In the 1970s, decades after it was published in the
French magazine Vu and life, a South African journalist
named O.D. Gallagher claimed that Capa had told him
the image was staged. But no confirmation was ever pre-
sented, and most believe that Capa’s is a genuine candid
photograph of a Spanish militiaman being shot. Capa’s im-
age elevated war photography to a new level long before
journalists were formally embedded with combat troops,
showing how crucial, if dangerous, it is for photographers
to be in the middle of the action.