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.

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

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I'm a messenger. I don't want people to be concerned about me. I want them to be concerned about the people in the pictures. I try to use whatever I know about photography to be of service to the people I'm photographing. I'm trying not to create photographs that viewers will look at and think: "What a good photographer he is," or "Look what an interesting composition he can make." I want the first impact, and by far the most powerful impact, to be about an emotional, intellectual and moral reaction to what is happening to these people. I want my presence to be transparent.

James Nachtwey

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It's more difficult to get publications to focus on issues that are more critical, that do not provide people with as escape from reality but attempt to get them deeper into reality. To be concerned about something much greater than themselves. And I think people are concerned. I think quite often, publishers don't give their audience enough credit for that. In fact, at the end of the day, I believe people do want to know when there's some major tragedy going on; when there's some unacceptable situation happening in this world. And they want something done about it. That's what I believe. We must look at it. We're required to look at it. We're requited to do what we can about it. If we don't, who will?

James Nachtwey

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The worst thing is to feel that as a photographer I am 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 allowed 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. Share this quote

James Nachtwey

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