"For me, the strength of photography lies in its ability to evoke humanity. If war is an attempt to negate humanity, then photography can be perceived as the opposite of war." -James Nachwey
I’m going to start off by saying, this blog post is not about fashion nor about travel, it’s about something more important.
As I walked to Photography today, not much was on my mind, besides what my plans were for the evening and when I was going to study for my French Midterm. Little did I know that when I went to my photography class that evening I would be thinking about much deeper problems.
Two and a half hours of my day were completely absorbed on a television screen in my Photography class. We watched the documentary “War Photographer” about the praised war photographer James Nachwey, whom takes pictures of only war and tragedy. As I sat through the documentary, eyes still and mind numb, I could not help but think how someone could go about their whole life, taking pictures of nothing but tragedy. Nachwey explained that taking these pictures is not for attention nor for his own benefit, it’s for the mass media. He explained that seeing the haunting images of Vietnam photographs as a young teen are what inspired him to be a war photographer. Vietnam unlike any other war previous to, was the first war that had uncensored photographs. The young generation stopped the war, because someone fought to stop it. Those “someones” were not all political heroes or charitable donators, they were people who had passion to stop the injustice. I think people need to see the real stuff, they need to see the disturbing, they need to see the gritty, they need to see the raw images of tragedy, otherwise we are all just looking at photographs of nothing. The viewer needs to connect with the victim, the viewer needs to see that the victim had a life, had a family, and ultimately is a person just like us. Photography can be the poison that kills tragedy.
One of the most disturbing things about watching this documentary was simply the lack of how unaware I am sometimes. I blame this mainly on the fact that I hate hearing about death, I hate hearing about crime, and I hate hearing about violence. Sometimes I choose to live in my own reality, sometimes being naïve to the world’s ways just makes sense, and in a way protects me, key word… me.
I hope my blog post might have provoked some thoughts out of some of you. The biggest question we should ourselves, is what are we doing to make a difference?
From Paris with love,
Marcy
Sudan- Famine victim in feeding center.
Romania- An orphanage for "incurables."
Afghanistan- Mourning a brother killed by a Taliban rocket.
Rwanda- Survivor of a Hutu death camp.
Chechnya- Pallbearers come for a woman's husband, who was killed by the Russian Army.
All photographs by James Nachwey.
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