James Nachtwey

Heartsick, reeling, gasping, weeping. Human, flawed, broken, unable to atone, unable to understand, unable to explain.

This book exists. You exist. Therefore you have a responsibility to look at it, to bear witness, to take something of hope away from it.

Know, going into it, that nothing can ever be the same again. The seen cannot be unseen. These images will sear themselves into your psyche to simmer, and you will not be unchanged.

This, Nachtwey's first book, contains images that will never leave my mind, and it shows that Nachtwey was a great photographer from the start. Even in his earliest work you find the same literate eye. Nachtwey finds symbols and allusions where a lesser photographer finds only pictures. He's not as consistent here as in his later work, but he's still masterful.

Afghanistan 1996
Review of the Stern Magazine Portfolio paperback (1998)

The recent (August 2021) re-takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban led me to take another look at photojournalist James Nachtwey's views of Afghanistan towards the end of the Afghan Civil War (1992-1996) when the Taliban first came to rule the country. James Nachtwey: Civil Wars was an early (Issue #6) publication of the German language Stern Magazine's Portfolio Bibiothek der Fotographie limited edition series which show more published quarterly from 1996 to 2014.

Civil Wars includes an introductory article "Der Augenzeuge" (The Eyewitness) by Hans-Hermann Klare with an initial portfolio of Nachtwey's work documenting conflicts and famines in Somalia (1992), Bosnia (1993), Sudan (1993), Rwanda (1994), Zaire (1994), and Chechnya (1995-1996) from pages 3 to 27. This is followed by the central portfolio with the epigram "Die Gotteskrieger haben uns in Afghanistan lebendig Begraben" - (Malalai, Ärztin in Kabul) [English translation: "The warriors of God buried us alive in Afghanistan" - Malalai, A doctor in Kabul] from pages 28 to 61. A further article, "Afghanistans endloser Krieg: Zwischen Kalaschnikow und Koran" [Afghanistan's Endless War: Between the Kalashnikov and the Koran] by Gabriel Grüner, and a further portfolio concludes the book on pages 63 to 91.

Nachtwey's work is always harrowing and disturbing but is extremely important for understanding the brutal impacts of inhumanity and conflict throughout the world. This is even more so at a time when we are even more doubtful about the propaganda and self-serving nature of corporate media and politicians and war profiteers.

See image at https://i.pinimg.com/564x/10/34/44/103444f07481b4f0cacf6208d015b487.jpg
An outtake photograph similar to the cover photograph of "Civil Wars" by James Nachtwey, Kabul, Afghanistan, 1996. Image sourced from Pinterest.

See image at https://i.pinimg.com/564x/d1/d4/fc/d1d4fcd11cf3ac5cab669fe89fcd482b.jpg
Ruins of Kabul, Afghanistan, 1996 by James Nachtwey. Image sourced from Pinterest

I had not been previously familiar with the photojournalism of James Nachtwey (1948-) until I saw the documentary film War Photographer (2001) by director Christian Frei at the 2001 Hot Docs International Documentary Film Festival in Toronto. Afterwards I was able to source several published collections of Nachtwey's work and James Nachtwey: Civil Wars (1998) was one of them. show less

The first monograph of Nachtwey's powerful testament to the impact of war. Includes 75 color images.