Robert Capa Biography

Robert Capa was a Hungarian war photographer and photojournalist who later became a naturalized US citizen. He is considered to be one of the greatest war photographers of all time as he covered the Spanish Civil War, the Second Sino-Japanese War, World War II, the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and the First Indochina War. His extensive works include the documentation of the course of World War II in London, North Africa, Italy, the Battle of Normandy on Omaha Beach and the liberation of Paris. His action photographs portray a very chilling and up-close view of the violence in war-ravaged regions, like the ones he took during the 1944 Normandy invasion. He risked his life many times during the wars to get extremely critical shots. When he fell in love for the first time, his lady-love was killed during the war. This news emotionally broke him and he vowed never to marry. He founded the Magnum Photos agency with some of his photographer friends to help other free-lancing photojournalists. He was famous for saying, "If your photographs aren't good enough, you're not close enough". While covering the First Indochina War, he jumped out of the jeep in a dangerous area to get a better shot, stepped on a landmine and succumbed to his injuries.