The D-day Photos That Must Be Seen

(LA Times) ML Cavanaugh June 02 2019 3:05 AM Some photos must be taken some images must be seen. These thoughts must have motivated photographer Robert Capa 75 years ago as he plunged off a landing craft and onto Omaha Beach with an early wave of the D-day landings. If your pictures arent good enough" Capa famously advised then youre not close enough." He was close enough on June 6 1944 to secure what are now known as the Magnificent Eleven the surviving images on four rolls of film delivered from Normandy to London just a day and a half after the Allied assault on Europe began. Five of the photos slightly out of focus" in Capas words were published in the next issue of Life magazine dated June 19 1944: Battle scenes in blurred black and white; frenzied grim. The stark face of a helmeted soldier caught in swirling water often cited as the iconic image of the longest day" captured the landings essential danger: drown or fight. Capas D-day shots reportedly inspired director Steven Spielbergs wrenching realistic take on the landings in Saving Private Ryan." To pierce Hitlers Atlantic Wall more than 16000 Americans would die and 40000 would be wounded by the end of July. Great photos matter. They do two things simultaneously: zoom us in on some frozen moment and then widen our apertures to the world in a way that transcends words alone. Often the pictures that hit us hardest depict violence. Of the 133 winners of the Pulitzer Prizes for photography more than half 69 have been connected in some way to man-made conflict. Given a choice the prize-givers honor such images because as graphic and grisly as they may be they are crucial to public understanding in a dangerous world.