ABSTRACT
This essay is about the discourses, mechanisms, bodies, and procedures mobilized as the controversy of Capa’s famous picture evolved. I do not intend to take a position in favor of one or another of the parties involved in this controversy. I do not fall on the side of prosecution or the defense, nor do I act as judge. My perspective is very different. My role is to further substantiate this case not by adding new pieces to an already very voluminous dossier but by analyzing the evolution of the “truth regimes” – that is, testimony, archive, and forensic expertise – mobilized by Capa’s defenders and detractors. For more than forty years, Capa’s photograph has been the object of fierce differences of opinion and battles among experts, all providing a wealth of lessons on various beliefs about photojournalistic truth. In order to analyze
what could be called these “general politics” regarding the truth of photography, I review the chronology of this controversy so that I can identify its main probative systems. I take a particularly close look at the most recent system to enter the debate: forensics. The new paragon of irrefutable belief, forensics has been recently invited into the debate with the project of treating Capa’s photograph like a crime scene.
