James Nachtwey - Photojournalism as Impactful Storytelling

Susie Linfield’s’ elucidation on American photojournalist James Nachtwey has underpinned the central argument of this dissertation: ‘His gifts and his shortcomings sometimes infuriate, but they force us to look closer and, at the very least fail better. And so we need James Nachtwey’s photographs: even though, almost surely, we don’t want them.’2 To analyse Nachtwey’s photographs, their cultural and journalistic value and their effect on collective memory is to concede that not wanting them, not wanting to look at them, is an inherent part of bearing witness to their atrocious content. It is also to acknowledge that the atrocity photograph has a profound influence on collective memory and collective consciousness. And yet the assertion that ‘we need James Nachtwey’s photographs'3 requires further exploration. This dissertation identifies, through a comparison between Nachtwey’s photographs and those of the liberation of Bergen Belsen concentration camp, a perpetuation of an iconography of horror in Nachtwey’s work. This perpetuation is symptomatic of the Holocaust photographs having set a precedent for the way in which contemporary atrocity photographs are created and understood. Therefore, in their relation to collective memory Nachtwey’s photographs are argued to be problematic; not only for what they depict but also for how they depict it. This dissertation applies the work of theorists to ground the comparison between the two sets of images. The scholastic predictions for the future of memory studies are used to inform an awareness of the homogenisation of all atrocity photography in order for dynamic remembrance and the atrocity photograph’s influence on collective memory to be preserved. If timeless remembrance is to be preserved, then the ghosts of those depicted in atrocity photographs, the ghosts of those that suffered, must find a lasting presence in the atrocity photograph that is unaffected by the legacies of the photographs that came before them and those that are yet to come. 'Furtive and untimely, the apparition of the specter does not belong to that time, it does not give time, not that one:' Enter the ghost, exit the ghost, re-enter the ghost'. [Hamlet]4 2 Susie Linfield, The Cruel Radiance, Photography and Political Violence (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press: 2010) p. 231 3Linfield, The Cruel Radiance, Photography and Political Violence, p. 231 4 Shakespeare, Hamlet cited by Derrida in Exordium in Specters of Marx, trans. P. Kamuf, p. xix

This chapter discusses the nature of iconic pictures of war, emphasizing a picture's transformation over time from a historically specific photograph of particular events in time and space to an image largely stripped of specific historical context and embedded instead in mythic narratives of collective memory. Iconic photographs discussed include, among others, the American Civil War pictures of Alexander Gardner and Timothy O'Sullivan, the Spanish Civil War and World War II photos of Robert Capa, Robert Steichen's World War II photos form the Pacific, Joe Rosenthal's "Raising the Flag at Iwo Jima", Yvegeny Kaldei's "Raising the Flag over the Reichstag," and the Vietnam War photos of Larry Burrows, Eddie Adams, and Nick Ut. Issues of government censorship, media framing and filtering, and collective public memory are addressed.

Picturing the past: media, history, and photography, 1999

Abstract: This article explores media self-reflexivity as understood within Peace Journalism (PJ) in the case of photojournalists and photojournalism. Carrying forward the discussion started by Allan (2011) for research into 'peace photography' to be extended to 'tacit, unspoken rules' underlying photojournalistic images, the article shows, through two examples of mainstream news images, how photojournalists can and may break from diktats of 'news values' to advertently or inadvertently critique the myths of the very practice they function within. Such self-reflexive, synecdochic images which display media's own role in covering conflict are examples from which PJ can take lessons for a new visual grammar where visual peace journalism is understood to not only 'expose the untruths' behind propaganda but also expose the truths behind how such propaganda is reified by the media. Kurzfassung: Der vorliegende Aufsatz untersucht die friedensjournalistische Selbstreflexivität im Falle von Photojournalisten und des Photojournalismus. In Fortsetzung der von Allan (2011) angestoßenen Diskussion darüber, dass die ‚friedensphotografische' Forschung die ‚stillschweigenden, ungesagten Regeln' untersuchen sollte, die dem photojournalistischen Bildaufbau zugrunde liegen‚ zeigt der Aufsatz anhand zweier Beispiele von mainstream-Pressephotos, wie Photojournalisten dem Diktat der ‚Nachrichtenwerte' entgehen können um die Mythen des Praxisfeldes innerhalb dessen sie operieren bewusst oder unbewusst zu hinterfragen. Solche selbstreflexiven, synekdotischen Bilder, welche die Rolle der Medien in der Konfliktberichterstattung darstellen, sind Beispiele, aus denen der Friedensjournalismus Lehren für eine neue visuelle Grammatik ziehen kann, die visuellen Friedensjournalismus nicht nur im Sinne einer ‚Entlarvung der Unwahrheiten' hinter der Propaganda versteht, sondern auch die Wahrheit aufdeckt, wie eine solche Propaganda von den Medien reifiziert wird.

2018

Photography, as a technology, benefits from an assumption of truth found in no other mediums. (Benovsky, 379) Common understanding is that the photographer is operating a machine and presumably capturing objectively. This view doesn't account for the necessary and narrative decisions that go in to the creation of a single still image. (Benovsky, 383) Even an image captured by a human eye is effected by a number of factors that alter the perspective, sharpness, and tones perceived. (Benovsky, 376) Necessary decisions like aperture, shutter speed, angle, focus, development and framing all shape the image created and its meaning, yet none take away from the truth that what is captured is objectively real and in front of the lens. (Benevsky, 383) The photographers make these decisions with the intent of preserving facts but when truth isn't entirely separate from perspective and opinion, decisions made by the photographer will shape facts in a way that favors one side or the other. These necessary decisions are made on the basis of the conditions of the project. (Grayson, 314) Every image holds the ideological perspective of the photographer and that dictates the story that will be told. Photographers also have to consider their customer, equipment capabilities, and any time and access restrictions. (Grayson, 315) The way these decisions are made plays a major role in shaping public opinion of the subject. Public opinion in turn shapes the outcomes of wars, elections, and policy that create change much larger than the scene in front of the camera. Roger Fenton documented the Crimean War of 1853 as the first commercial photographer to cover such a conflict. With just three years' experience, he was hired by Thomas Agnew and Henry Pelham-Clinton, a publisher and Britain's Secretary of State for War to make images that could be shown off to prominent figures and sold as prints to a commercial audience. Fenton's commercial and political audiences wouldn't have found much use for graphic battlefield images. Fenton, hoping to please his client, brought back images of men in the camps,