Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2000/06/26
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]ARTHURWG@aol.com jotted down the following: > Nachtwey seems to hold himself superior to his > subjects; like one critic said, it's difficult to distinguish the living from > the dead. I don't get that from his stuff at all. Instead, I get the feeling that the pictures were taken by someone who was almost numbed by shock and horror at the existance of those kinds of events and conditions. In some of his pictures, there ISN'T much distinguishing the living from the dead. Animate corpses. Rather than come across as someone who is flaunting their superiority, or taking pleasure in the horrors he sees, Nachtwey (through his pictures) strikes me as someone who has the courage to not only face these scenes (rather than pretend that they don't exist), but the composure to take photographs and communicate it to and audience too. What I think is important about his pictures is that they are not at the height of the action: They are not the usual, violence and sacrifice- glorifying pictures of the fighting and war as a whole, but pictures of the civilian population, collateral casualties that otherwise are never known about. Individuals who too are humans, only forgotten ones. Ones that are not even acknowledged. (I don't understand your stuff about sin and the devil and selling your soul. I don't see what they have to do with contemporary photography.) M. - -- Martin Howard | Visiting Scholar, CSEL, OSU | People don't like to be parameters email: howard.390@osu.edu | in an equation. www: http://mvhoward.i.am/ +---------------------------------------