James Nachtwey

"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."

-James Nachtwey-

In a comment to the previous post, Anonymous asked what we should “do with our phots”. I can’t answer that. It is different for each of us. But it begins with the idea that we can make a difference and extends from there. It begins with a willingness to try. It begins by asking ourselves why we photograph and using that knowledge to inform what we do.

A number of times I have mentioned people influential in my photography and how we can be informed by what the masters have done. In this post I would like to talk about one who has had a huge impact on me, on my photography and both coincidentally and consequentially, on how I feel about Life.

My acquaintance with his work began when a friend, Mark Racle, invited me to come and see a film called War Photographer, a biography of the work of James Nachtwey, nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. I knew of Jim’s work, had followed it at a distance but knew little else. There were a number of us there; including what seemed to be all the press photographers in town. We sat and the projector rolled. Some 96 minutes later we all filed out. Hardly a word was spoken. There was a sobriety amongst everybody that spoke volumes.

The film tracks him through a number of wars, including Kosovo, Indonesia and Palestine. The director has placed micro-cameras on top of the camera so we get a first-person view of him working. We can hear the burning houses, his shutter tripping, people grieving and we are brought literally face to face with what he photographs on a daily basis. The director, Christian Frei, has brought reality filming techniques to a new level.

Through a series of interviews with those he works with and for, we get a better insight into how he works and, more importantly, why he works. He discusses this quite frankly and openly.

In 1985, shortly before becoming a member of the famous photo agency Magnum, then 36 years old, he wrote the following text, a credo about the relevance of his work as a war photographer.

Why photograph war? There has always been war. War is raging throughout the world at the present moment. And there is little reason to believe that war will cease to exist in the future. As man has become increasingly civilized, his means of destroying his fellow man have become ever more efficient, cruel and devastating. Is it possible to put an end to a form of human behaviour which has existed throughout history by means of photography? The proportions of that notion seem ridiculously out of balance. Yet, that very idea has motivated me.

I think it was watching the film that I began to take a harder look at my own photography, to start asking myself why I photographed. Was it just a very expensive hobby for my own amusement or was there more to it than that? Was I merely a dilettante?
( def. dil·et·tante
n 1. somebody who is interested in an art or a specialized field of knowledge but who has only a superficial understanding of it 2. somebody who has a passionate interest in the fine arts (dated) ) adj typical of somebody who has only a superficial understanding of something

I started to look at my own photography, to question why I photographed, and what (if any) legacy I wanted to leave. Here was a man who had spent most of a working life in the hellholes of the world, trying to make a difference. How did reflecting on this inform what I was doing? Was I doing anything, or just chewing up the Earth’s resources?

I watched the film over and over, and each time his example inspired and stirred me, as have the lives of my other heroes, Te Whiti O Rongamai, Mahatma Ghandi and Nelson Mandela. It made me see what I was doing in a different light. And to look at my own work in a different light (no pun intended.)



His friend, Denis O’Neill says of him:

"The possibility of a normal life, that's the main conflict... and what he's had to sacrifice to live the life that he leads... He has given everything to the job."

A cynic could suggest that he is yet another Don Quixote, tilting at windmills, and to an extent they are probably right. The apparently natural human trend towards self-destruction seems a juggernaut impossible to slow, let alone reverse. Is it however a greater sin to try and get nowhere or not to try at all, I asked myself? I might achieve nothing concrete or I just might, minimally, move the Titanic away from the iceberg and make a difference.
Hey, it worked for Hine and Adams (see previous post).

Maybe, just maybe….

I find myself watching that film often, every time my commitment falters, every time hopelessness sets in.

Recommend it? Damn right. If your nearest arthouse video shop, doesn’t have it, you can get it here.

Ka kite ano