James Nachtwey and The Other

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James Nachtwey is an American photojournalist and war photographer. He has been awarded the Overseas Press Club’s Robert Capa Gold Medal five times. In 2003, he was injured by a grenade in an attack on his convoy while serving as a Time contributing correspondent in Baghdad, from which he has made a full recovery. He is by all accounts one of the greatest war photojournalists of our time, a member of The Bang Bang Club and Magnum, he has bodies of work ranging from Sudan, Kosovo and Northern Ireland to the Middle East and 9/11.

His words are always haunting, he has seen and photographed horror in its deepest and darkest form. It is miraculous he has survived both physically and mentally so far. He remembers;

“The most incomprehensible situation I’ve ever witnessed was Rwanda where we don’t really know how many people died; the estimate of half a million to a million. They were killed with very primitive weapons; clubs and rocks and machetes, face to face. And I saw some massacre sites and I just do not understand how people can do that to each other. What can inspire such fear and such hatred? This is beyond my understanding really. It’s very difficult to get over that.

…And I realised that many of the people I was photographing might have been the very ones who had committed the massacres that I had witnessed just a few weeks before. And it was like taking the express elevator to hell.”

A lot of photojournalism is knowledge, absorbing information and coming to an innate understanding of the events. This should never be achieved on the road to the event. You must think first as a journalist and second as a photographer. Journalism will always provide you with the context in what to shoot, rather than choosing the most attractive position. James is a connoisseur in this field, but was thrown when the attacks of 9/11 happened, almost dying while shooting under the WTC 2, when it fell.

Filed under: 9/11, afghanistan, america, camera, conflict photojournalist, documentary, George Bush, horror, humanitarian photojournalist, Iraq, journalism, ngo humanitarian photographer, offices, photojornalism, photojournalism, Photojournalist, politics, religion, War, warrior ethos

The Greater Good

Currently reading ‘Tell me Lies”. What do I say? Talented and amazing professors looking into our involvement worldwide with issues, that is broadcast through our tv screens and Internet. The amount of fact and evidence tottaly knocking the news like CNN and BBC for six. They did a poll of a few hundred people up and down the US and Britain asking what the ‘Occupied Territories” were. It was shocking the results, answers like Palastine and Isreal are arguing over a border, or Palastinian/Isreali people are occupying each others land and both neighbours are telling each other to fuck off.

The truth is (other than the fact that the US give $4 Billion to Isreal in arms each year) that the news is told what to do, what to say..the choices of words. The fact that Isreal has a military stranglehold over Palastine and encamping thousands of them in their own country, cutting off medical aid and letting women die in pools of blood at checkpoints in childbirth, doesnt come into the equation.

Americas war on Terror, or The War against Terror, or T.W.A.T as I like to call it. Have an open mind for a minute. Isreal attacks Palastine and commits genocide and incamps tens of thousands of arabs..correct..good. Now when the BBC ask for a middle-east correspondant from Isreal they pull out the man with the suit sat in Washington DC…they pull out a Palastinian talker and he’s in army scruffs and with a bandana saying they want Isreal off their land….it reminds me of WW2. The French had a resistance…you’ve all seen Allo’ Allo’..so I will say this only once. Iraq or Palastine or even Swansea, Manchester or London. If we were invaded or illigally carpet bombed by the thousands..(Like a small town in Iraq that got carpet bombed, the U.S said it was a friendly fire mistake, so the BBC and CNN took it at face value…real reports and eye witnesses said that they came back for 3 days to carpet bomb the village..a woman lost 9 children in a house that the Americans said housed ‘bad guys’…the US apologised and gave each grieving person 5 grand…that means her children were worth 556 quid.)..then there would be a resistance for fuck sake.

Rebel fighter ‘Che’ is now considered a great man, will any of the resistance rebel fighters across the world over be given that? No because its against our troops. ‘We Must Support Our Troops’ I hear you say!! Then fucking bring them home!

Filed under: america, BBC, blog, britain, camera, che, CNN, dissertation, Iraq, isreali, lies, london, manchester, palastinian, photography, propaganda, student, troops