James Nachtwey famous quotes

06-24-2025

I have been a witness, and these pictures are my testimony. The events I have recorded should not be forgotten and must not be repeated.
-- James Nachtwey

#Photography #Events #Forgotten
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 Nachtwey

#Photography #War #Lying
There is a job to be doneto record the truth. I want to wake people up!
-- James Nachtwey

#Jobs #People #Records
I became a photographer in order to be a war photographer, and a photographer involved in what I thought were critical social issues. From the very beginning this was my goal.
-- James Nachtwey

#War #Order #Issues
When the truth is spoken, it doesn't need to be adorned. It just needs to be simply stated, and often it only needs to be said once.
-- James Nachtwey

#Needs #Truth Is #Said
The worst thing is to feel that as a photographer I'm benefiting from someone else's tragedy. This idea haunts me. It's something I have to reckon with every day, because I know that if I ever allow genuine compassion to be overtaken by personal ambition, I will have sold my soul. The only way I can justify my role is to have respect for the other person's predicament. The extent to which I do that is the extent to which I become accepted by the other and to that extent I can accept myself.
-- James Nachtwey

#Ambition #Compassion #Ideas
If there is something occurring that is so bad that it could be considered a crime against humanity, it has to be transmitted with anguish, with pain, and create an impact in people - upset them, shake them up, wake them out of their everyday routine.
-- James Nachtwey

#Pain #Impact #People
I began after college, about 1972. I began to teach myself photography. I went to work for a local newspaper for four years as a kind of basic training.
-- James Nachtwey

#Photography #College #Years
If you want to connect with people who are in distress and great grief and scared, you need to do it in a certain way. I move kind of slow. I talk kind of slow. I let them know that I respect them.
-- James Nachtwey

#Grief #Moving #People
None of the editors I've worked with have ever asked me to pull my punches. They've never asked me to give them anything other than my own interpretation of events.
-- James Nachtwey

#Editors #Giving #Events
Starvation and disease are the original weapons of mass destruction. When you burn fields and kill animals, people are left vulnerable.
-- James Nachtwey

#Animal #People #Disease
I don't believe there's any such thing as objective reality. It's only reality as we experience it.
-- James Nachtwey

#Believe #Reality
I'm half deaf. I have nerve damage and a constant ringing in both of my ears, and there are certain times and conditions when I can hardly hear at all.
-- James Nachtwey

#Nerves #Ears #Half
If you make an honest picture of war, it will be an antiwar photograph.
-- James Nachtwey

#War #Honest #Photograph
I dont think tragic situations are necessarily devoid of beauty.
-- James Nachtwey

#Thinking #Tragic #Situation
I try to use whatever I know about photography to be of service to the people I'm photographing.
-- James Nachtwey

#Photography #People #Trying
Unfortunately, the world continues, history continues to produce tragedies. And it is very important that they be documented in a humane way, in a compelling way.
-- James Nachtwey

#Tragedy #Important #World
I used to call myself a war photographer. Now I consider myself as an antiwar photographer.
-- James Nachtwey

#War #Photographer #Used
I want my work to become part of our visual history, to enter our collective memory and our collective conscience. I hope it will serve to remind us that history's deepest tragedies concern not the great protagonists who set events in motion but the countless ordinary people who are caught up in those events and torn apart by their remorseless fury. I have been a witness, and these pictures are my testimony. The events I have recorded should not be forgotten and must not be repeated.
-- James Nachtwey

#Memories #People #Tragedy
[Photography] puts a human face on issues which, from afar, can appear abstract or ideological or monumental in their global impact.
-- James Nachtwey

#Photography #Motivation #Inspiration
If Im feeling outraged, grief, disbelief, frustration, sympathy, that gets channeled through me and into my pictures and hopefully transmitted to the viewer.
-- James Nachtwey

#Grief #Frustration #Feelings
Photography can be perceived as the opposite of war.
-- James Nachtwey

#Photography #War #Opposites

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