I had a name which was a little bit different from Bob Capa. The real name of mine was not too good. I was just as foolish as I am now, but younger. I couldn’t get any assignment. I needed a new name badly… And then I invented that Bob Capa was a famous American photographer who came over to Europe and did not want to bore French editors because they did not pay enough… So I just moved in with my little Leica, took some pictures and wrote Bob Capa on it which sold for double prices.
Regarded as the greatest war photographer ever, there are strangely no photos of Robert Capa the photographer before 1934. That’s because Robert Capa didn’t exist. It was an invention.
Expelled from Hungary at the age of 17, Endre Friedman bounced from Germany to France learning photography along the way. When he arrived, the man we know as Robert Capa was born. Possibly the greatest war photographer in history, Capa’s contributions are as broad as his interests.
The biography of Robert Capa is as captivating as his portfolio. After a short encounter with a communist leader in Hungary got him imprisoned, his new life on the road would be anything but ordinary. Fortunately for Capa, his mother was a seamstress for the head of police’s wife in Budapest. When she learned about her eldest son being arrested for “communist associations,” she was able to negotiate his release. This would be the first of many sticky situations that Capa danced through during his life. The terms of his release were that he had to leave Hungary and never return.
Understandably upset Capa went to Germany to complete his education until Hitler’s role forced him to move on. Finally settling in Paris, Capa met the love of his live Gerda Taro, who was working as a photo assistant - she would later tragically die in the Spanish Civil War. The combination of her creative marketing and Capa’s photographs soon solidified his role as a serious photographer. The two of them created the identity of Robert Capa. It had a good ring to it and Taro spread his images all over town, talking up his genius to the photography editors. Even after they were confronted for fraud, it was too late. The not so famous Endre Friedmann had successfully established himself as a prominent photographer of the Spanish Civil War.
He wanted to be a photographer, so he declared himself one. The rest is history.
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