Task 2
Read the text below and answer the questions. For each question, choose the correct answer A, B, C or D
1. Robert Capa is a name that has for many years been synonymous with war
photography.
2. Born in Hungary in 1913 as Friedmann Endre Ernő, Capa was forced to leave
his native country after his involvement in anti-government protests. Capa had
originally wanted to become a writer, but after his arrival in Berlin had first found
work as a photographer. He later left Germany and moved to France due to the rise
in Nazism. He tried to find work as a freelance journalist and it was here that he
changed his name to Robert Capa, mainly because he thought it would sound more
American.
3. In 1936, after the breakout of the Spanish Civil war, Capa went to Spain and it
was here over the next three years that he built his reputation as a war photographer.
It was here too in 1936 that he took one of his most famous pictures, The Death of a
Loyalist Soldier. One of Capa’s most famous quotes was 'If your pictures aren't
good enough, you're not close enough.' And he took his attitude of getting close to
the action to an extreme. His photograph, The Death of a Loyalist Soldier is a prime
example of this as Capa captures the very moment the soldier falls. However, many
have questioned the authenticity of this photograph, claiming that it was staged.
4. When World War II broke out, Capa was in New York, but he was soon back in
Europe covering the war for Life magazine. Some of his most famous work was
created on 6th June 1944 when he swam ashore with the first assault on Omaha
Beach in the D-Day invasion of Normandy. Capa, armed only with two cameras,
took more than one hundred photographs in the first hour of the landing, but a
mistake in the darkroom during the drying of the film destroyed all but eight
frames. It was the images from these frames however that inspired the visual style
of Steven Spielberg's Oscar-winning movie ‘Saving Private Ryan’. When Life
magazine published the photographs, they claimed that they were slightly out of
focus, and Capa later used this as the title of his autobiographical account of the war.
5. Capa’s private life was no less dramatic. He was friends with many of
Hollywood’s directors, actors, and actresses. In 1943 he fell in love with the wife of
actor John Austin. His affair with her lasted until the end of the war and became the
subject of his war memoirs. He was a one-time lover of actress Ingrid Bergman.
Their relationship finally ended in 1946 when he refused to settle in Hollywood and
went off to Turkey.
6. In 1947 Capa was among a group of photojournalists who founded Magnum
Photos. This was a co-operative organization set up to support photographers and
help them to retain ownership of the copyright to their work.
7. Capa went on to document many other wars. He never attempted to glamorise
war though, but to record the horror. He once said, "The desire of any war
photographer is to be put out of business."
8. Capa died as he had lived. After promising not to photograph any more wars, he
accepted an assignment to go to Indochina to cover the first Indochina war. On May
25th 1954 Capa was accompanying a French regiment when he left his jeep to take
some photographs of the advance and stepped on a land mine. He was taken to a
nearby hospital, still clutching his camera, but was pronounced dead on arrival. He
left behind him a testament to the horrors of war and a standard for photojournalism
that few others have been able to reach.
9. Capa’s legacy has lived on though and in 1966 his brother Cornell founded the
International Fund for Concerned Photography in his honor. There is also a Robert
Capa Gold Medal, which is given to the photographer who publishes the best
photographic reporting from abroad with evidence of exceptional courage. But
perhaps his greatest legacy of all is the haunting images of the human struggles that he
captured.
