Google pays homage to pioneering female war photojournalist Gerda Taro

Image: Google Doodle

Google marked the 108th birthday of Gerda Taro last Aug. 1 with a black-and-white doodle reminiscent of Taro’s black-and-white photos of her front-line war coverage of the Spanish Civil War in 1937.

While bullets were pelted and bombs were blasted during the war, Taro turned to her camera lens to shoot the realities of the armed conflict between the Republicans and Nationalists headed by General Francisco Franco.

“Though she was tiny in stature, Gerda Taro had the heart of a giant. Known as ‘the little red fox,’ the ginger-haired photographer fearlessly turned her camera lens to capture sensitive and critical images of conflict around the world, producing powerful black-and-white images that informed readers of the newspaper Ce Soir,” elaborated Google.

Taro was born in 1910 in Stuttgart, Germany, and eventually moved to France when Adolf Hitler was appointed Germany’s Chancellor in 1933. It was in Paris where she met war photojournalist Endre Friedmann, who taught her photography. Together they fell in love and created the alias “Robert Capa” to sell their news photographs.

Taro perished at the age of 26 in 1937 near El Escorial, Madrid, while “capturing images on the front line of the Spanish civil War.” But despite her untimely demise, Taro’s name became familiar among many households. She acquired the reputation of being one of the bravest female war photojournalists of her time and being the  first woman to report, and die, in war.

As Google would say, “Here’s to Gerda Taro, who had a photographer’s eye, a journalist’s soul, and a warrior’s courage.”  /ra

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