Capa's Quotes

#1. [Robert] Capa: He was a good friend and a great and very brave photographer. It is bad luck for everybody that the percentages caught up with him. It is especially bad for Capa. (On Capa's death in Vietnam, May, 27, 1954)

Ernest Hemingway,

#2. Working at the scene of the action, I have adopted Robert Capa's saying: 'If your photographs aren't good enough, you're not close enough.' But in retrospect I add a corollary: if you're too close to events, you lose perspective.

Micha Bar-Am

#3. One thing that Life and I agreed right from the start was that one war photographer was enough for my family; I was to be a photographer of peace.

Cornell Capa

#4. Photography has the capacity to provide images of man and his environment that are both works of art and moments in history.

Cornell Capa

#5. If your pictures aren't good enough, you aren't close enough.

Robert Capa

#6. If your father says 'Bark like a dog,' I say 'What breed, Your Honor?

Scott Lynch

#7. The desire of any war photographer is to be put out of business.

Robert Capa

#8. Q: Do you really distance yourself from your subject? I mean, what would you do if you were presented with a young girl burning to death?
A: About 1/60 at f5.6.

Robert Capa

#9. You don't have to pose your camera. The pictures are there, and you just take them. The truth is the best picture, the best propaganda. (On the Spanish Civil War, 1937)

Robert Capa

#10. This war is like an actress who is getting old. It is less and less photogenic and more and more dangerous.

Robert Capa

#11. He withdrew then, leaving [him] standing in the bloody morning sunlight, leaving him all alone at the heart of his fortress, for the second time, with nothing but a corpse for company.

Scott Lynch

#12. With all the arguments and discussions about the Vietnam War, what did the visual image do? It ended the war.

Cornell Capa

#13. The camera is an extension of yourself ... Your story treatment may be subjective, but it is important to remain objective as to truth.

Cornell Capa

#14. For a war correspondent to miss an invasion is like refusing a date with Lana Turner.

Robert Capa

#15. I hope to stay unemployed as a war photographer till the end of my life.

Robert Capa

#16. The Concerned Photographer produces images in which genuine human feeling predominates over commercial cynicism or disinterested formalism.

Cornell Capa

#17. It's not enough to have talent, you also have to be Hungarian.

Robert Capa

#18. I am a gambler. I decided to go in with Company E in the first wave.

Robert Capa

#19. Like people and let them know it.

Robert Capa

#20. The war correspondent has his stake - his life - in his own hands, and he can put it on this horse or that horse, or he can put it back in his pocket at the very last minute.

Robert Capa

#21. The truth is the best picture, the best propaganda.

Robert Capa

#22. I am not an artist, and I never intended to be one. I hope I have made some good photographs, but what I really hope is that I have done some good photo stories with memorable images that make a point, and, perhaps, even make a difference.

Cornell Capa

#23. In a war, you must hate somebody or love somebody; you must have a position or you cannot stand what goes on.

Robert Capa

#24. It's not always easy to stand aside and be unable to do anything except record the sufferings around one.

Robert Capa

#25. What's the point of getting killed if you've got the wrong exposure?

Robert Capa

#26. Images at their passionate and truthful best are as powerful as words can ever be. If they alone cannot bring change, they can at least provide and understanding mirror of man's actions, thereby sharpening human awareness and awakening conscience.

Cornell Capa

#27. The war is like an actress who is getting old. It's less and less photogenic and more and more dangerous. (1944)

Robert Capa

#28. The [concentration camps] were swarming with photographers and every new picture of horror served only to diminish the total effect. Now, for a short day, everyone will see what happened to those poor devils in those camps; tomorrow, very few will care what happens to them in the future.

Robert Capa

#29. The idea that any photography can't be personal is madness! I see something; it goes through my eye, brain, heart, guts; I choose the subject. What could be more personal than that?

Cornell Capa

#30. The war photographer's most fervent wish is for unemployment

Robert Capa

#31. I would say that the war correspondent gets more drinks, more girls, better pay, and greater freedom than the soldier, but at this stage of the game, having the freedom to choose his spot and being allowed to be a coward and not be executed for it is his torture.

Robert Capa

#32. I love the Dutch impressionists - Vermeer, Rembrandt. What they were able to do with light was astonishing. As for photographers, I think mostly of the Hungarians: Robert Capa, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Jozsef Pesci. In fact, I have one of his photographs hanging in my house.

Vilmos Zsigmond

#33. The pictures are there, and you just take them.

Robert Capa