Brussels

1929–1930

Harry Crosby gives him his first camera

His squadron commander put him under house arrest for hunting without a licence, and the American expatriate Harry Crosby, who had him released into his custody for a few days, gave him his first camera; they took and printed pictures at Crosby’s home, Le Moulin du Soleil, in Ermenonville.

1930–1932

Escape to Africa: Côte d’Ivoire

After reading Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness” in the army he decided to escape and seek adventure in Côte d’Ivoire; he lived by shooting game and selling it to villagers, and later carried methods learned hunting into his photography. Only seven photographs survived the tropics, although he had taken a portable camera smaller than a Brownie.

1930–1932

Blackwater fever and instructions for his own funeral

In Côte d’Ivoire he contracted blackwater fever, which nearly killed him; still feverish, he sent his grandfather instructions for his own funeral — in Normandy, at the edge of the Eawy Forest, with Debussy’s String Quartet played.

1931–1932

Munkácsi’s photograph, a Leica and the choice of photography

Recovering in Marseille, he saw Martin Munkácsi’s photograph “Three Boys at Lake Tanganyika” and “suddenly understood that a photograph could fix eternity in an instant”; he gave up painting and bought a Leica with a 50 mm lens, darkening its shiny parts to stay unnoticed.

1933

First exhibitions: New York and Madrid

In 1933 his photographs were first exhibited at the Julien Levy Gallery in New York and then at the Ateneo Club in Madrid.

1934

He meets Chim, and through him Capa

In 1934 he met the young Polish intellectual and photographer David Szymin, known as “Chim” (later David Seymour), and through him the Hungarian photographer Endré Friedmann, the future Robert Capa; he would later found Magnum with them.