You become strong as you know you are the only person who can give these people a voice, but it can turn you very emotional, witnessing such unpleasant scenes and moments in these poor peoples lives.
''It;s hard to divide your attention, emotion+energy, you have to be single minded''
- He is a mystery and a loner - sometimes you have to be to work that well and give so much of yourself.
Nachtwey decided in the early 1970's to become a war photographer during Vietnam - it affected him so much that he decided to follow on that tradition of War photography.
The images from Vietnam were straight forward documentary images- powerful indictment the war and how unjust and cruel it was.
However, for Nachtwey to go on with this he first had to convince himself that he could do this before even convincing others and also had to learn in taking pictures - how to develop a personal vision, how to express his own feelings. In order to do that he had to get in touch with his own feelings.
Natchwey states ''It was true photography though the discipline of the frame'
It became the way he discovered himself and the world.
In 1980 he woke up one night with a very clear idea that now he's learned everything he can learn and now is the time to go to New York to become a War Photographer.
Natchwey felt like he was witnessing history not from an academic point of view, not from a distance but really what happens to ordinary people in the course of history.
He feels as if in a way this was a lot like theatre but instead of being in the audience, he was on the stage and the script was being written minute by minute as it went along and you had to understand and anticipate and connect with it emotionally+intellectually what was going on so you can follow it.
''These photos would not have been made without the acceptance of the people and complicity. They understand that a stranger has come with a camera to show the rest of the world what is happening to them - it gives them a voice to the outside world that they otherwise wouldn't have.
SOMALIA
In 1992, this child was feeling such a hunger as you will probably never feel in your life. Necked, with no hope for the future and born in a world that has no means to support him, this Somali child seems to have no reason to keep fighting. How many children must died of famine since then and how much food did we throw away last year?
- ''FEAR is not important, its about how you deal with it. Not about the pain, its about how you manage it'' - JN
INDONESIA
This photo of a one-arm, one-leg beggar washing his child in a polluted river is heart-breaking. Despite his poverty, despite his extreme handicap, he still finds the power to take care of his son. And we are complaining of not having hot water one day…
AFGHANISTAN
This beautiful yet, apocalyptic image is telling us the story of a war: The civil war in Afghanistan turned Kabul into ruins. On this background, the white image of this covered lady seems a ghost rather than a human being.
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What I learnt from Nachtweys images is that he channels his emotions into his pictures and that he tries to focus and pre-visualise situations he might get in and run them through his mind. It's very sub-concisious of how he prepares himself mentally.
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