Instead of heading to the Middle East on a new assignment to cover the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, James Nachtwey '70 honored his commitment to his alma mater.
A world-renowed war photojournalist and now a Dartmouth Montgomery Fellow, Nachtwey presided over a presentation yesterday of an Academy Award-nominated documentary about his life and work in Cook Auditorium.
While the overflow crowd of students and community members may have been expecting a speech, they were not disappointed by the presentation; after answering questions posed by the audience, Nachtwey received a standing ovation.
Subjects for Nachtwey's photography include war, famine, poverty and grief. To capture his images, he has traveled to Beirut, Bosnia and El Salvador and, until December, Nachtwey was covering the "war on terrorism" in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Nachtwey was also in New York City the day the World Trade Center was attacked. On that day, as on many others during his career, the Dartmouth graduate was almost killed while doing his job.
For some, Nachtwey said, his photographs are too emotional and too graphic. But he said that what he witnessed during the Rwanda genocide was "like taking the express elevator to hell." His photographs merely reflect the horrors he witnessed.
Nachtwey said he is sometimes criticized as making money off of others' tragedies, and his pictures are regarded by some as an invasion of others' privacy and even "pornography."
But he does not see things that way. Compassion for others drives Nachtwey to take the pictures -- he said yesterday that people allow him to take their photographs because they realize he will broadcast their voices to the entire world.
While a student at Dartmouth, Nachtwey had no intention of ever becoming a photographer until images of the Vietnam War inspired him. "The pictures show the cruelty of the war that was not being said by the political leaders."
The Vietnam pictures were on-the-ground coverage that contradicted what political leaders were telling the country, Nachtwey said.
Since his exposure to those photos, Nachtwey has made it his mission to raise awareness of social and political events around the world. The artistic aspects of the job, he said, were not a driving force in his decision.
