James Nachtwey Research Paper

James Nachtwey

James Nachtwey was born in Massachusetts on March 14, 1948. Between the years1966-1970 he studied Political Science and Art History at Dartmouth College. Impressed by images form Vietnam War and the American Civil Rights movement he discovered the desire of photographing conflicts, critical social issues and documenting wars. He started his work as a newspaper photographer Albuquerque Journal at the age of 28. At the age of 32 started working as a freelance photographer in New York. After that he traveled around the world and captured touching moments of war, conflict and famine starting from South Africa to Latin America, Middle East, Russia, Eastern Europe, the former of Soviet Union and images of social political issues (pollution, crime and punishment) from Western Europe and United States.

He is trying to show us through his work the true face of the disasters that happens in the world. He said "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 tries to make the world hear about what is happening in the world, he did research on different subjects and captured the essence of the problems that the plant deals with every day. A subject that he straggles with is tuberculosis; he presented the issue by saying "Despite the fact that tuberculosis afflicts a huge number of people it's not on the radar screen in terms of public awareness. Normal tuberculosis, if diagnosed and treated diligently, is very inexpensive and doesn't take very long to cure. But if normal TB is not treated, it mutates and becomes 100 times more expensive, requires a two-year cure and a long stay in the hospital, which many of those infected cannot afford. The thought of XDR getting out of control is truly frightening." He photographed people that suffer of tuberculosis; the images are terrifying, and so deep emotional. To see the suffrage of others while we are living our lives without even thinking about what others feel, and how they fight to live the next minute. Nachtwey cached on his camera people that lives in famine, the images are absolutely unbelievable, a picture that he presented it as being captured in Sudan, 1993, named " Famine victim in a feeding center" , in the picture is illustrated the image of a African men, that is literally crawling on the ground because he is nothing but skin and bones and has no power to stand up. The photographs that Nachtwey is taking are the unimaginable cruel truth.

"Inferno," the recently published book by photojournalist James Nachtwey, is big (11 by 15 inches, two-and-a-quarter inches thick) it contains 382 dramatic black-and-white photographs on 480 pages. Douglas Cruickshank is saying about the book that "It's not pretty. Indeed, it's a guided tour of hell, or at least the past 10 years of hell as it's been played out in places like Somalia, India, Sudan, Bosnia, Rwanda, Zaire, Chechnya and Kosovo."

Nachtwey contracted with Time Magazine from 1984 to present. He also was allied with Black Star (1980 – 1985) and was a part of Magnum from 1986 until 2001.as it is written on his website,