James Nachtway

After watching this poignant documentary on war photography, it made me want to go out and document the injustices in the world. I have a lot of respect for Nachtway with his career/ life decision to become a war photographer. It is beyond me how he can witness all of this suffreing and injustice and still remain optimistic and kindhearted—I just wonder how can he do it? The emotional burden alone has to be devistating.

Nachtway also fascinates me with how close he can get to the people he is photographing. He is so respectful and just wants to share their stories with the world, and open up peoples’ eyes. He is giving these victims a voice. Clearly, he is not exploiting them for his own benefit. He is putting his life on the line every day to try and find an antidote to all of this war and injustice. But honestly, I don’t think that photography can be an antidote to war.

After living in Africa this summer and photographing everything I saw, I became very emotional and wanted to change things for the better too. I want to bring these problems to the forefront and let people in industrial countries know what is happening in the majority of the world. I have decided to do my semester long project on comparing poverty cross culturally to raise awareness, but I know now that it will not evoke much change. Unlike Nachtway, I am a little more cynical.

I believe that once people leave Nachtway’s gallery or finish reading his article, they will leave very upset and think of a way to try and change. However, once they return to their comfortable daily lives, they will all too quickly and easily forget what they just saw. Wars are sometimes necessary, but what really needs to change are the developing countires political structure and educational system. This is not easy and often a catch-22. Photography will help this processs by raising awareness and physically showing what is going on, but it will only be an ‘antidote’ if people actually fuel their anger/ upset emotions into a solution. Nachtway is probably the best photographer out there to elicit such emotions and realities from people. But he alone cannot provide an antidote to injustice and violence. Only we as a whole can do that. This makes me wonder what power and what limitations photography has on affecting people, and initiating change. I don’t really have an answer to that.

Nachtway is a phenomenal photographer. I have the higest respect for him and the images he is trying to show the world. I truly hope that his images will start the beginnings of change, because certain things in this world really need to change.