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.

I want to record history through the destiny of individuals who often belong to the least wealthy classes. I do not want to show war in general, nor history with a capital H, but rather the tragedy of a single man, of a family.

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fotojournalismus:

A father and son in the poverty-stricken Rwandan countryside.

[Credit : James Nachtwey]

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fotojournalismus:

A young girl warily eyes a guerrilla fighter in the Lubero district, where a rebel group meets with U.N. personnel, Congo, 2008.

[Credit : James Nachtwey]

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The most incomprehensible situation I’ve ever witnessed was Rwanda where we don’t really know how many people died; the estimate of half a million to a million. They were killed with very primitive weapons; clubs and rocks and machetes, face to face. And I saw some massacre sites and I just do not understand how people can do that to each other. What can inspire such fear and such hatred? This is beyond my understanding really. It’s very difficult to get over that.

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fotojournalismus:

Sudan, 1993. Famine victim about to receive water in a feeding center.

[Credit : James Nachtwey]

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fotojournalismus:

Rwanda, 1994. Survivor of Hutu death camp.

[Credit : James Nachtwey]

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.