He knew war well, so well he despised it. He sought for peace without expecting it. He was a menace in only one respect. He was perhaps the world’s worst driver. He took no greater risk in war than in crossing the Champs Elysees He teased the old and made them laugh. He taught the young without their knowing it. Children loved him, as did many women. But he never discussed his deepest affections. He suffered behind the scenes from loneliness, insecurity, heartbreak. He died with a camera in his left hand, his story unexpectedly finished. He left behind a thermos of cognac, a few good suits, a bereaved world, and his pictures, among them some of the greatest recorded moments of modern history. He also leaves a legend, for which there is no other description than...Capa.
On June 6, 1944, an assault barge landed Robert Capa on Omaha Beach. Stumbling ashore under heavy fire, he exposed four rolls of the most famous films in history. As luck would have it, all but eleven frames were ruined in Life’s London darkroom when the emulsion ran in an over-heated drying cabinet. However, Life, and the world press, published the surviving images, calling them "slightly out of focus" from the blurred emulsion. And Capa maintained his dangerous franchise as the most colorful war photographer.
In 1954 Capa went to Japan with a Magnum exhibition. While he was there, Life suddenly needed a photographer on the Indochina front. Capa volunteered. But it was one war too many. His luck ran out on May 25. They found him still clutching his camera.
On May 25, 1954, the career of Robert Capa, whose exploits as a war photographer had made him a legend in modern photography, came to an abrupt end when he stepped on a land mine on an obscure battlefield in Indochina.
Information from http://www.photo-seminars.com/Fame/capa.htm
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