War Photography: The Art Show - James Nachtwey

"If you believe in something strongly and want to tell the storey of it, you can do it, you can do anything"

Recently I watched a film documenting a war photographer, James Nachtway. It basically followed Nachtway and his work, showing us what is required to be a war photographer and the tragic holdings it left people in. Nachtway first decided to become a War Photographer in the early 70s during Vietnam. He said that "The pictures that where coming out of Vietnam where showing us what was really happening. And it was in contradiction to what our political leaders and military leaders where telling us". I guess this is where 'propaganda' comes in. While watching the film I was unsure, I guess a bit confused about what propaganda was. But after watching and discussing the film I think I've come to understand it a little more. From my own thoughts, propaganda is something that influences our beliefs I guess and attitudes towards something that we only know one side of the storey of. It can be either true or false, twisted, so that we only know what 'we need to know'.

 

Rwanda, 1994 - Survivor of the Hutu death camp.

     

Nachtway expressed a lot that the images he captured wouldn't have been made if he wasn't accepted by the people he was photographing, he said, "It’s simply impossible to photograph moments such as those without the complicity of the people I'm photographing, without, the fact that they welcomed me that they accepted me that they wanted me to be there". His images give the people a voice and show the grim conditions and shocking effect the war had left. James went on to documenting poverty in Indonesia. He follows a family who live along the train track. The father losing his arm and leg from being run over by a train on a drunken night that still had to go out and provide for his family begging for money on roads. He then went to Jakarta and discovered that a country that had been celebrated for a kind of economic revival, there was still a large part of it that people where still living in poverty.

Indonesia, 1998 - A beggar washed his children in a polluted canal.

 

West Bank, 2000 - Palestinians fighting the Israeli army.

Nachtway's images show that he's always a part of what goes on, they show he's right in the middle of it all. I think you would have to be brave to do what he does, you would have to be quite level headed. Everyone has an idea for what it would be like to see the things Nachtway has, simply by looking at images and hearing about it. I think we would all think that we'd be prepared for it but in reality we wouldn't. Our expectations of it just wouldn't be what we thought it would be like if we did see it for ourselves. When discussing the film I got asked if I 'would i do it?' It’s not something that I would personally want to make a career out of. But, if I had the opportunity to, I think I would. Mostly because I'm curious to see for myself what it’s like, to see what actually happens to people that are effected by war.

We had a discussion in class about awareness. And it was said that there's loads of awareness around already, I disagree. I think there isn't enough, if there was wouldn't there be a change? Nachtway said "It’s occurred to me that if everyone could be there just once, to see for themselves, what white phosphorus does to the face of a child, or what unspeakable pain is caused by the impacted of a single bullet, or how a jagged piece of shrapnel can rip someone’s leg off. If everyone could be there to see for themselves that fear and the grief just one time, then they would understand that nothing is worth letting things get to the point where it happens to even one person, let alone thousands". I think that he’s absolutely right, photos do make us have empathy for the subjects but not enough because it’s not around us.