Robert Capa - Career

Career

Born Endre Friedmann to Dezső and Júlia Friedmann on October 22, 1913 in Budapest, Hungary. Deciding that there was little future under the regime in Hungary, he left home at 18.

Capa originally wanted to be a writer; however, he found work in photography in Berlin and grew to love the art. In 1933, he moved from Germany to France because of the rise of Nazism, but found it difficult to find work there as a freelance journalist. He adopted the name "Robert Capa" around this time—in fact cápa ("shark") was his nickname in school and also he felt that it would be recognizable and American-sounding since it was similar to that of film director Frank Capra. He found it easier to sell his photos under the newly adopted "American" sounding name and over a period of time gradually assumed the persona of Robert Capa (with the help of his current girlfriend Gerda Taro, who acted as an intermediary between himself and those who purchased the photos taken by the "great American photographer, Robert Capa"). Capa's first published photograph was that of Leon Trotsky making a speech in Copenhagen on "The Meaning of the Russian Revolution" in 1932.