Magnum Inspiration

Cornell Capa

  

     In researching aspects of Magnum photographers that I possibly wanted to emulate, I came across Cornell Capa’s work. The brother of the famous war photographer Robert Capa, Cornell stated that one war photographer in the family was enough, and that he would instead document peace. The work in his magnum portfolio spans almost 4 decades, from 1939 to 1973. He captured images of a little of everything, ranging from prominent political powers like JFK and Adlai Stevenson, to celebrities on set like Marilyn Monroe, to prisoners and protesters, to everyday, serendipity happenings on the street. Capa’s work was featured in Life magazine, where he was employed for several years, as well as in his exhibits called The Concerned Photographer. After his brother’s death, he joined the Magnum photography agency, and eventually became the director. The capstone of his photographic career was his initiation of the International Center of Photography in New York.
    The thing that captured my attention, and eventually drew me back to Capa, was not his skillful use of black and white. Nor was it the dramatic or subtle effects he was able to achieve with light. It wasn’t his choice of subject matter, or even the way he captured his subjects as if they were in the middle of a sentence. The aspect of Capa’s photography that I wanted to emulate was the fact that a significant amount of his pictures are taken from behind the subject. Instead of always standing in front of those he wanted to photograph, he decided, for whatever reason, to take the less-traveled approach and photograph their backs, and by so doing, capturing the point of view of that subject and what lay in front of them. I found it very interesting that Capa would photograph President Kennedy in the oval office, not from the front of his desk, but from behind his chair, capturing just a portion of Kennedy’s head peaking up from the backrest. I found it intriguing that Capa got behind Queen Elizabeth and Prince Phillip to capture their interactions, instead of doing what would be considered normal and going out to get a frontal view of their faces.
    Although I agree that the face is the most expressive feature of the body for many reasons, I also believe that there is a different, more reserved expression that comes from viewing things from behind. We may not get to see the subject’s faces, but we do get to see their body language, what the environment in front and around them is like, and how they are interacting with it. Perhaps it’s possible to capture more private, intimate moments from behind, because the camera isn’t facing off with the subject and creating possible tension. I wanted to experiment with this curious technique and find out for myself what Capa’s visual intent could have been, and to see what kind of images come from standing behind a subject.