Wartime photographs by Robert Capa pose a chilling question to modern viewers. Maso Heck and Axel Fonteyne of Innocean explain how they adapted the images.
In the picture: Axel (left) and Maso
It just so happens that I’m a fan of Robert Capa (1913 to 1954), the masterly photographer who landed with the troops on D-Day and was killed a decade later when he stepped on a landmine in Vietnam. Although he did other work – and co-founded the legendary Magnum Photos agency – he’s known as the consummate war photographer. His pictures are humane, riveting, and often required incredible bravery.
With at least three books devoted to Capa on my shelf, I was delighted to talk to Maso Heck (Head of Art) and Axel Fonteyne (Jr. Copywriter) of the German agency Innocean about their campaign for the Robert Capa Contemporary Photography Center, in Budapest.
The campaign puts Capa’s images in a modern context to ask why the kind of wars he photographed are still being waged. Maso points out: “One of the things the museum has always told us is that they’re not just about the past – they bring in contemporary photographers too. They’re often seeking ways to use art as a social commentary on things that are happening in our society now.”
Disturbing parallels
The relationship with the museum was developed by Innocean’s ECD, Ricardo Wolff, who already had an interest in Capa and photography in general. Out of that sprung a campaign in 2023 called “Capa By AI” – comparing poorly executed AI images to Capa’s searingly human originals.
Axel says: “It was something the museum had never done before and they saw some really good results. They were attracting a lot of eyeballs and it opened the door for us to do other campaigns – so in 2024 we pitched Capa Vs. War.”
The idea surfaced when Axel and his colleagues began examining the museum’s portfolio of Capa photos. “Of course it was a time when war was resurgent, with what was happening in Ukraine and Gaza. We noticed that Capa’s pictures were similar to images we’re seeing now. Because when you look at rubble, destruction and piles of brick, it can be from any time. The images treated the same subject and provoked the same pain as well.”
This led to the central idea – that war has been contemporary for far too long. The museum indicated which Capa images it owned the rights too, and from that selection four were chosen. Maso says: “One important criteria was that the location should not be recognisable. It should be generic in the sense it could be different places. Because then it can resonate with the present.”
Axel agrees. “They had to be timeless, powerful and without any landmarks or objects that would take you straight back to World War II or Vietnam.”
Drama without damage
Then came the tricky business of adapting the images without overtly changing them. Maso explains: “We took care to not damage the pictures and to respect the originals. Mostly all we did was add a little more contrast and extend some parts in post-production to fit the format. It was important to enhance the drama that would make the message powerful. We wanted to get the right balance between the power of the image and the power of the message.”
The draft concept of the campaign had been simple. “It was like a PowerPoint design,” Maso smiles. “An image with the copy in the middle. But you could already see it worked, with a strong concept and a clever headline.”
They began to tweak the idea, but in the end came back to something close to the first draft. The finishing touch was the choice of font. Maso says he had a specific reference in mind: the “War Is Over!” poster with John Lennon and Yoko Ono. “The words are black on a white background but the typography is super strong. That was the effect I wanted. Plus it was kind of fun, the idea of bringing these people who hated war together.”
A typography expert, he decided on Lutz Headline. “It has a sort of post-industrial vibe. And also I think a warlike feel, but in a modern way.”
Capa back in focus
The pan-European campaign ran across several cities, including Milan, Vienna and of course Budapest. There was a digital version with the addition of subtle motion graphics: smoke drifting behind a walking soldier. “The campaign got covered by a lot of creative and advertising websites,” Axel adds. “It was talked about by the press and appreciated by our colleagues in the industry. We’re not talking about a huge client, but it got international visibility.”
All the better to promote the museum – and Capa himself, who’s somewhat less known to modern audiences than some of his contemporaries, like Robert Doisneau. Few people have a Capa poster on their wall.
But perhaps the best reaction came from those who know Capa intimately. Maso tells the story. “I presented the campaign at a university in Spain a little while back. It was really cool because there were a lot of experts there – people from New York specialising in Robert Capa and so on, to mark the 70th anniversary of his death. So I talked about our process and showed the originals, followed by the campaign images.”
Maso was convinced that the academics would be appalled. In fact, they accepted and approved of the campaign. “If you have a good eye and know the pictures, you can see the little changes we made. But they understood the reasons we did that and respected them. So I thought – OK, I can sleep well now!”
Axel: "The images treated the same subject and provoked the same pain as well."