Decades of close calls have left photographer James Nachtwey with damaged hearing and grenade shrapnel in his knees, stomach, and face – but he has no plans to retire.
When Russia invaded Ukraine last year James Nachtwey packed up his cameras and Kevlar vest and rushed to the frontlines. Nachtwey is one of the greatest war photographers of all time. Over the last four decades he's covered nearly every armed conflict in the world. He was shot in the leg in Thailand, wounded by a bomb in El Salvador, a mortar in Beirut, and a grenade in Iraq that was tossed into a Humvee he was riding in.
James Nachtwey: Well, many of the people I photographed are marginalized by the powers that be, that they're silenced, they're made invisible. So when someone comes from another part of the world and he assumes risk to tell their story, I think people see us as a kind of messenger. James Nachtwey: I think it's a way of looking at it. Because in a way you're, you might be fighting for peace or fighting against an injustice and the way you do it is by informing people about it, with the faith that people will want something done about it.
James Nachtwey: The expression on his face. If you really look carefully at his eyes, you can see there's terror in his eyes. He'd just been living in a state of terror for quite a while. Anderson Cooper: These are split seconds that are occurring. You can be running and taking a picture… James Nachtwey: The cribs were just packed together. The children were in the cribs and they weren't taken out to play. They were almost like in prison, in a way.
James Nachtwey: I don't wanna feel like I'm taking from people. I want them to feel like they're part of what I'm doing. And I think he understood what his scars would say to the rest of the world. James Nachtwey: I'm angry a lot of the time. I mean, when I see innocent people being pushed around and bullied. Yeah, I fight depression. It-- the things are depressing. But I think it's a sense of purpose that, you know, sorta drives me through that.
But it wasn't until 1981, after 10 years of training, that Nachtwey felt ready to photograph armed conflict. He bought a ticket to Belfast, northern Ireland where riots and street battles were escalating.James Nachtwey: I didn't know anyone. I was green. I just threw myself into it. James Nachtwey: I felt that I was in the midst of history as it was happening and I was documenting it and that-- that was really an exciting feeling.
Here it is again in slow motion, as Nachtwey in the white shirt moved to reach his injured colleague, a bullet, like a gust of wind, grazed his hair. James Nachtwey: It's not for any one image. It's for the job itself. I decided a long time ago that if I was gonna do this, I would have to put myself at risk, and anything could happen.
The proof sheets are a silent reminder of the horror that day…but also reveal how Nachtwey works. He isn't just a photographer documenting destruction. He's a man in search of meaning.
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