In this age of social media, photojournalism has become a much more valued discipline than it already was during the past century. And if it is a question of knowing the history of such activity, it is worth stopping at Gerda Taro and Robert Capa , whose biographies and works can be considered foundational in this matter.
Gerda Taro was a distinguished photographer, born in Germany in 1910, whose images portrayed the cruelty of warfare, including the Spanish Civil War, and this earned her great recognition throughout the European continent.
This intrepid and determined young woman , in a world where women had fewer possibilities than they are today, was considered the first female war graphic correspondent and, sadly, also the first female war graphic correspondent to die while doing her job.
Robert Capa
This is the name under which Gerda Taro herself and her husband, the Hungarian Endre Friedmann, released many of the best photographs of both, although for a long time it was believed that these works only belonged to him.
And if we add to that that Robert Capa is taken as the best war photographer of the 20th century , the conclusion is that we are in the presence of an incredible story from all sides, that of a man and especially a woman who changed for always the rules of photography.
In fact, Gerda Taro’s decision to adopt a masculine name, which she would later share with Friedmann, made all the sense in the world, since several of the doors that were opened to her under that pseudonym would have remained closed if her partners knew that they were it was about a “she.”
The master plan attracted the public’s interest immediately, and the big firms paid large sums of money to the supposed representatives of Robert Capa, a millionaire American photographer who did not want to maintain contact with those who bought his images.
However, that first light commercial stage later gave way to war photojournalism during the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, both portraying the indescribable suffering and desolation of the battlefield but, above all, of the towns devastated by the militia.
With her photograph “Death of a militiaman” as an icon of the 20th century, Gerda Taro was killed by a car in the summer of 1937, on her way to the Battle of Brunete, being fired with honors and buried in the famous Père-Lachaise cemetery in Paris, beyond that the details and curiosities about his relationship with Friedmann and Capa would be known years later.
