AFTER JOSE CENDON LIBERATION.

I can’t believe it! Jose Cendón, after being released, narrated his experience in La Vanguardia and in a radio interview for the chain Ser. The photographer Tino Soriano publishes in his blog the first 40 comments about Cendón from readers. It is unbelievable. The call him gaudy, vain, Indiana Jones, James Bond, unbearable, Superman, macho man, vulture, and one says that Rambo at his side is an altar boy ... One of them writes: “I want to be like him. Go around the world visiting dangerous places and return here to explain it while I wear my flashy brown jacket" What do bother them? Cendón good looks and his apparent lack of fear while describing his capture? It should be remembered that for taking the pictures Cendón made, and makes, you have to be special. He's been working in one of the most dangerous places in Earth. José Cendón financed his own trip to the Congo where he photographed the psychiatric hospital who earned him the World Press Photo Award. Surely if Jose Cendón had not had that character, he would have stayed in their native Galicia shooting press conferences and regional football games (that said with all my respect for the colleagues who do).

I looked back and found pictures of the ones that, undoubtedly, have been the best war photographers in history: Capa, Don McCullin and James Natchwey. I do not know very well the personal motivations of Natchey, who began his international career photographing the riots caused in Belfast (Northern Ireland) for the death of the IRA militant, Bobby Sands, after a hunger strike in 1981 (I also covered the story for the Interviú magazine). Natchwey looks like an actor playing the role of war photographer.

JAMES NATCHWEY

Capa and McCullin were adventurous (I’ve read the biographies of both) and they weren’t exactly what you would call modest. The photos I show of them in the blog simply reinforce my assertion. All of them were very special, brave photographers with a great talent, like Cendón. (Without stating that he is already at the level of the above photographers).

ROBERT CAPA

DON McCULLIN by MARK SHAND

What do they don’t forgive about Jose Cendón? That he doesn't appear like a victim? His good looks? The fact that he didn’t got killed? His brown jacket?