Monday, May 17, 2004 5:35 PM
BY JILL STEWART
James Nachtwey, 2004 co-recipient of the Press Club’s Daniel Pearl Award for courage and integrity in journalism, has photographed many wars and other hor- rors since he launched his career in 1981, yet his personal message offers inspiration.
On his website, www.jamesnachtwey.com, among all the terrible yet beautiful photo- graphs of AIDS, 9-11, African famine, Bosnia and Iraq, his message reads: “The strength of photography lies in its ability to evoke a sense of humanity. If war is an attempt to negate humanity, then photography can be perceived as the opposite of war and if it is used well it can be a powerful ingredient in the antidote to war.”
Nachtwey narrowly escaped death last year in Iraq when the
open-backed Humvee in which he and others were riding was subjected to grenade saved by TIME investigative reporter Michael Weisskopf, who grabbed the grenade and tossed it away as it exploded. (Weisskopf, the other recipient of the Pearl Award, lost his hand.
Nachtwey, a TIME contract photographer, was spared in part by a protective helmet and vest. As fellow photographer Chris Anderson explained last year, after visiting Nachtway in a Baghdad hospital where he began his recovery from shrap- nel wounds, “Jim is not exactly known for wearing his vest and helmet in the field.” Yet on that day, he had.
Nachtwey, regarded by many as the world’s top war photographer, in June will accept the Press Club’s Pearl Award, which was first bestowed posthumously to Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter murdered in Pakistan.
Nachtwey’s stunning images of victims, heros and everyday people caught up in crises on several continents are the stuff of legend. The documentary on his life, “War Photographer,” was nominated for an Oscar in 2001. In it, the filmmaker’s lens moves with Nachtwey from Palestine to Rwanda to other treacherous locales, witnessing what Nachtwey witnesses.
One admirer, on a photography web page, writes that Nachtwey’s most searing images are not seen by the public because advertisers “do not want to share ad space on the same page with dire images of famine, war, poverty, and disease” that “might lead the readers to overlook the soft drink or sneaker ad.”
In his coverage of crises from Northern Ireland to Chechnya, Nachtwey has racked up dozens of awards. A short list includes the Robert Capa Gold Medal five times, the World Press Photo Award twice, Magazine Photographer of the Year six times and the ICP Infinity Award three times.
