War PhotographersFrank J. DavisFrank J. Davis was born July 14th, 1924 in Baltimore, Maryland. In his early years he attended Baltimore Polytechnic Institute. This school was an all-male high school which focused mainly on science and engineering.
He first became interested in photography when he received a small camera as a gift in high school. He started processing his own films and prints at home. After he gained the schools school camera group and had several of his pieces in the yearbook he decided to become a professional photographer. He Graduated in 1941, and saw an ad in the paper that the University of Maryland's hospital was looking to hire. He ended up getting hired and he started photographing patients under treatment, specimens like brain sections and body parts, and photomicrographs. He says that during his movie that he filmed (of a cancer operation on a man's face) he ended up fainting. Frank didn't know at the time that his photography gig at the hospital was actually preparing himself for his future as a medical photographer in the U.S. Army. He was drafted in 1943, and was sent to Camp Crowder, Missouri where he received Signal Corps basic training. The Army knew about his medical experience and after a couple months of training he was transferred to the Army Medical Corps at Camp Barkley, Texas. Later he was transferred to the Army Medical Museum, in Washington, D.C. where he joined the 6th Detachment of Medical Museum Art Service. Soon he went to Italy with the MMAS 3rd Detachment operating in Naples, and from there he went to France, and then lastly to the Mariana Islands. He returned home in February 1946 and continued his career for several years, and in 1971 he ended up selling his studio and moving to Williamsburg, VA. He retired in 1986 and he has toured 25 countries in all. Robert CapaRobert Capa was born in Hungary on October 22, 1913. He was a Jewish combat photographer and a photojournalist who was apart of five different wars: the Spanish Civil War, the Second-Sino-Japanese War, World War II, the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, and the First Indochina War.
He originally wanted to be a writer, but found work as a photographer in Berlin and he grew to love it. In 1933 he moved from Germany to France, but found it difficult to find work there. His first published photograph was one of Leon Trotsky making a speech in Copenhagen on "The Meaning of Russian Revolution" in 1932. He documented World War II in London, North Africa, and Italy. At the beginning of World War II, Capa was in New York CIty. He had moved there to escape from Nazi persecution. He first photographed for Collier's Weekly and then he switched to Life, because he had gotten fired. He was the only "enemy alien" photographer for the Allies. Capa photographed the Naples post office bombing on October 7, 1943. His most famous work was on June 6th, 1944 (also known as D-Day) when he swam ashore with the second assault wave on Omaha Beach. Capa ended up taking 106 pictures in the first hours of the invasion. Sadly, a member at Life in London messed up and he accidently melted three complete rolls and over half of a fourth one. Only eleven frames in total were recovered. In the early 1950s, Capa accepted the roll to accompany a French regiment. On May 25, 1954 the regiment was passing through a dangerous area under fire when Capa decided to leave his jeep and photograph the advance. Five minutes later, his accompanies heard an explosion, Capa had stepped on a land mind. His left leg had been blown to pieces and he had a serious chest wound. He died with his camera in hand. |
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