Capa’s Concern

About the picture: Picture of Capa. Found on artist Monica Ong’s site.

Classified as a “concerned photographer,” Cornell Capa worked to expose revolutions and hardships, especially in Latin America. Capa was born in Hungary into a secular Jewish family in 1918. He was inspired to go into photography due to his brother, Robert Capa−a war photographer who was killed while taking photos in Indochina. In 1974, he created the International Center of Photography (ICP) in order to honor his brother’s cause and to strengthen photojournalism. Currently, the ICP is featuring an exhibit of his various works.

One of Capa’s photos that managed to epitomize the working class in Puerto Barrios, Guatemala was of a “Peasant with patched pants listening to land distribution speech.” The photo was taken during the summer of 1953 and featured a poor man with battered clothes listening intently amongst a crowd of people. This one man seemed to represent the entire laborer population of his time, as he had his back turned away from the photo so as to not put a face on poverty. It was captured during the presidency of Jacobo Arbenz Guzman, who strongly supported agrarian reform and the redistribution of land to peasants. In this manner, the photo shows what Capa referred to as “…a beginning of a new life” for the less fortunate population of Guatemala.

Another country that Capa visited was Argentina. What he focused on the most while there was the dictatorship of Juan Peron and the effects that it had on his followers. A piece that I found amusing was “Portrait of Eva Peron being hoisted before rally at which Juan Peron announced and withdrew his resignation,” taken in Buenos Aires the August of 1955. The story behind this dealt with Peron’s supporters rallying to get him back in office after he resigned, which resulted in his invalidation of the resignation. The mere presence of these huge portraits of Juan and Eva Peron within the photograph is enough to make any viewer chuckle, for the idea of someone putting a self-portrait large enough to cover a building side seems crazy. Considering the amount of respect and reverence that Peron’s supporters had for him at the time, it seems plausible that the pair would be hailed in such a way. Yet the absurdity of this photograph and its benevolent portrayal of the two leaders disappear in the subsequent photos of the exhibit, wherein former supporters are shown rallying against them.

Although his profession was viewed to be of artistic value, Capa did not focus on making his photos visually pleasing. He wanted his photos to tell a story that would move his viewer and inform him/her about the existing conditions of the world. Through his work in Guatemala and Argentina, he thoroughly expresses his concern for his subject matter and dedication to his purpose as a photographer.