Monday Inspiration – James Nachtwey

Okay, I know I’m cheating a bit here – it’s a few minutes to midnight, so by the time I finish typing this and post it, it will probably be Tuesday. I’m still going to call it Monday Inspiration, though!

(A quick note – James Nachtwey is a documentary photographer best known for covering wars all over the world. Some of the content I discuss and link to in this post is disturbing. The subject matter isn’t very inspirational – I know. What inspires me is Nachtwey’s photography and his attempt to document and change the way things are.)

I’ve known of James Nachtwey’s work for a few years now. I first discovered him when I discovered a documentary called “War Photographer” at my local library. “This looks interesting,” I thought, and I checked it out.

I’m not sure what I was expecting, but whatever preconceptions I had of what a war photographer does were taken away by this film. I’ve heard the idea that war photographers don’t do anything about the atrocities they witness. It quickly became clear while watching the film that this is not the case, at least not with Nachtwey. He comes across as a gentle, soft-spoken man – not at all what I expected of a war photographer. Yet he also comes across as very driven. He writes, “I have been a witness, and these pictures are my testimony. The events I have recorded should not be forgotten and must not be repeated.” Not only does he seem to be attempting to change things through his photography, he has directly intervened. The film contains an interview with another photojournalist who recounts a time when Nachtwey attempted to save the life of a man who was being beaten by a mob. Simply as a person, Nachtwey inspires me.

And the photographs! They make me weep sometimes. I don’t know if I can say much about them – they are visually stunning, masterfully composed, unobtrusively captured, tragic, horrifying, heartbreaking. You simply need to see them.

One of my favorites of Nachtwey’s images is this one of a boy in Chechnya (it’s also on the cover of “War Photographer”). Another favorite (warning: somewhat graphic) is this image of a survivor of the Rwandan genocide. I love this photograph of a child playing on an abandoned armored vehicle in Nicaragua. This picture (warning: very disturbing) of an orphan in Romania makes me weep. This is a beautiful photograph of a tragic scene – a family mourning the loss of one of their own. Perhaps the image that has moved me the most is this photograph of a pile of what must be at least hundreds of machetes in Rwanda.

For more, check out James Nachtwey’s web site. Be warned, though. The galleries there contain photos of horrific subject matter, including a few of dead children. They are not easy to look at.

You can also see more of his work at the photo agency he co-founded: VII. Click on Nachtwey’s name on the left, and it will bring up three pages of galleries. VII also features a three-part photo presentation and interview with him here. Scroll to the bottom – the clips are in the second-to-last row.

If you live in the Tri-Cities and have a Mid-Columbia Library card, one of the libraries has “War Photographer.” If you have a Richland Library card, the library has Inferno, a book of Nachtwey’s black and white photographs. Appropriately, the title is borrowed from Dante. To give you yet another warning, the photographs in Inferno are often horrific. This is a very sad book of very real tragedy. (The previous links are to Amazon, by the way.)

I’m unsure of how to end such a sad post. Looking at these images inspires me photographically, but also leaves me thinking about how screwed up the world is. I’m grateful for James Nachtwey – someone has to show us. A quote from the Bible comes to mind: “The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8).

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20 May 2008 | Other Photographers | Comments