So much suffering. Catastrophe upon catastrophe, really, the long chronicle of humanity’s vast inhumanity and indifference to our fellow humans a kind of psychosis draped in the flags of country, religion, revolution, and perhaps the most fundamental, reptilian attachment of all: greed. We want to look away, of course, the poet having long ago told us we “cannot bear very much reality.” In truth, it is natural, and human, and necessary, to carry on so the world’s accumulated misery does not plunder our own capacity for the joy and love and yes, frivolity and ease that should also be everyone’s birthright, at least in some blessed moments out from under suffering’s dark, stifling cloak. Yet how are we to know what befalls those in distant, denuded and warring lands absent those who consent to bearing witness, to staring the fullness of reality in its face and conveying what they have seen? Few have stared at that reality as intently, repeatedly and in as many tortured locales as James Nachtwey. *** *** Seemingly born with the grooves of a camera strap worn into his neck and an eye wide open to the travails of the world, Nachtwey is 75 years old and still working. In moments of pause, he can look back on a nearly half-century photojournalism career that began as a newspaper photographer in Albuquerque from 1976-1980. He then moved to New York City to answer a kind of calling (though my sense is he is far too modest ever to use that word) to document as a freelance photographer some of the hardest reckonings in the world. Wars, genocides, famines, terrorism, epidemics, addiction, imprisonment, industrial pollution. The poverty that underlies or results from so much of it. From Afghanistan to Pakistan, Romania to Rwanda, Palestine to Bosnia, Alabama to India and points between and beyond—all of them seeming to both strip and reveal human dignity under Nachtwey’s dogged, empathic gaze. His approach through the succeeding decades began with his covering “The Troubles” in 1981 Northern Ireland, where we can already see his work as both artsy and stark, seeking to tell, without a scintilla of artifice, the fullness of the human story unfolding in front of him. No matter the circumstance, he consistently renders it in unforgettable, haunting images, mostly in black and white, sometimes with just the right color splotch to reveal even greater depths. *** *** In their frequent somberness alternating with excruciating intensity, his photographs fairly leap off the page, demanding the full attention of the viewer and a full accounting of the forces of evil, greed or mere inertia that conspired to land these humans in the situation they are in. The pain and pathos Nachtwey’s work reveals beget a kind of heart-rending mashup of horror and empathy. With the danger, let’s face it, of exhaustion in viewers unable or unwilling to bear the reality of events he covers at great risk to his well-being. He carries grenade shrapnel in his knees, stomach and face, his hearing further declines with each of the many nearby explosions he hears in war zones, and he has suffered countless illnesses common to those traveling in undeveloped or ravaged parts of the world. One 1994 film clip from the violence attending the end of apartheid in South Africa shows the wind from a bullet parting through his hair as he leans over to tend to fellow photographer Ken Oosterbroek, who is in the throes of dying from gunshot wounds. “Yes, I’m angry a lot of the time,” he admitted in an interview last August on the network magazine show, “60 Minutes.” “The moment I see innocent people being pushed around and bullied…But I realized anger can throw you off the rails. So I channel my anger into pictures, and I realize my pictures have anger in them, but they also have compassion.” *** *** That compassion reverberates not only in Nachtwey’s body of work, but also his personal bearing, which is as sober as one would expect in a person who has seen what he has, over the great duration he has seen it. Lean, angular and upright, he speaks in measured tones but forthrightly, directly, projecting a dignified, respectful air to all he encounters. It’s a way of moving through the world that has held him in good stead with his thousands of photo subjects who permit him to enter their lives at the most intense, drastic moments human beings ever experience. Moments of abject terror, pain, and grief, all of which he trains his camera upon, the technicals well in hand, his eye unflinching in front of the often devastating and/or dangerous imagery it beholds. In a 2001 documentary on his life and work (those two being extraordinarily entwined in his case) by the German filmmaker Christian Frei, Nachtwey says: “The main purpose of my work is to appear in the mass media. It’s not so much that I want my pictures to be looked upon as art objects as it is a form of communication. There’s always so much more to do, I’ve never felt complete, I’ve never felt satisfied. I wouldn’t say I could use the word happy about it, because it’s always involved other people’s tragedies, and at best there’s a kind of grim satisfaction that perhaps I brought some attention, focused people’s attention, on these problems. Perhaps I’ve bought some relief, but it’s shifting sand, it keeps moving.” *** *** Again in the documentary, Nachtwey speaks of how he came to terms with the inherent complexity of making a living by pointing a camera at suffering. “The worst thing is to feel that as a photographer I’m benefitting from someone else’s tragedy. This idea haunts me. It’s something I have to reckon with every day, because I know that if I ever allow genuine compassion to be overtaken by personal ambition, I will have sold my soul. The only way I can justify my role is to have respect for the other person’s predicament…Those pictures could not have been made unless I was accepted by the people I’m photographing, it’s simply impossible…They wanted me to be there…They understand that a stranger who’s come there with a camera to show the rest of the world what is happening to them gives them a voice to the outside world that they otherwise would not have.” And about his specific approach to the ongoing human encounters he sometimes initiates on the spot, with little time to spare: “I don’t want to move too fast, I don’t want to be to speak too loudly. I want to be very open in my approach, to feel very open in my heart to them. People do sense that with very few words, sometimes with no words at all.” His website is the epitome of all those qualities. Simple, compact and restrained, virtually free of biography, philosophy or blurbs, its black background is dominated almost completely by photos from various (but hardly all) of the venues he has worked, every picture worth all the words a heart can bear. *** *** Nachtwey’s work also engenders various forms of oppression and denial by governments with a vested interest in either twisting or denying the truths that his camera reveals. In a 2007 TED Talk entitled, “My Wish: Let My Photographs Bear Witness,” he reflects on his coming of age in the Vietnam era: “Our political and military leaders were telling us one thing, photographers another. I believed the photographers, and so did millions of other Americans…They not only recorded history, they changed the course of history.” The statement implies an obvious question: Has (or will) his own tireless work to expose the horrors of the world also “change the course of history?” He would not, of course, even attempt an answer; that will be left for others to decide. But however we define “history,” it is almost absurd to think he has not already changed it by bearing the witness he has, documenting with such tender care thousands of individual stories, lives, and tragedies that would otherwise have gone invisible to the world. *** *** *** *** Finally, asked by Anderson Cooper whether, in the light of all he has seen, he can say he feels optimistic about the human species, he replies: “I don’t know if optimism is the right word. In these horrible situations we see everyday citizens doing remarkable things for each other. Mothers and fathers are my heroes. What they do for their children, how they protect them. Being in places where they have next to nothing, yet anything they have, they offer to a stranger. Those are the things that we all have and are displayed in the worst situations, that makes me believe in humanity.” *** *** *** *** Comments? Questions? Suggestions, Objections, Attaboys? Just scroll on down to the Comments section below. No minimum or maximum word counts! Check out this blog’s public page on Facebook for 1-minute snippets of wisdom and other musings from the world’s great thinkers and artists, accompanied by lovely photography. https://www.facebook.com/andrew.hidas/ Deep appreciation to the photographers! Unless otherwise stated, some rights reserved under Creative Commons licensing. Elizabeth Haslam, whose photos (except for the books) grace the rotating banner at top of page. https://www.flickr.com/photos/lizhaslam/ Library books photo by Larry Rose, all rights reserved, contact: larry@rosefoto.com Nachtwey headshot courtesy of Universidad de Navarra, Spain https://www.flickr.com/photos/unav/ All other photos courtesy of James Nachtwey http://www.jamesnachtwey.com/
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