Print Viewing Response

 Graciela Iturbide’s image of the woman with boombox and trailing hair.

         In the black and white image of the rushing woman there is strong contrast between the dark tones of her upper body and the white sky against which she stands out as a near silhouette. The subjects are of rich and varied texture, from the rough rock and dried leaves of a bush in the foreground to the thick cloth of the woman’s skirt and her soft flowing hair in the middle ground. Mountains recede into the background, and the repetition of small plants fills the expanse of the right side of the image. The woman’s arms are raised up and bits of sky peak out from beneath them. One side of the boombox she is carrying is illuminated by the sun, casting a small triangle shadow on her skirt. Her dark hand holds the boombox as naturally as it does the other unrecognizable object in her left hand which creates a sense of mystery in the image.

         My first impression was excitement and a sense of peace. I love the vantage point of rounding a corner with the woman and the space opening up. Because we are coming from a familiar place and a human scale and moving into a flat plane I feel that she is leading me somewhere. She is both grounded- rising organically from the rocks and completely in motion. I want to touch her hair and the folds of her skirt which are like petals of a flower.

          The woman is hurrying somewhere, she goes with purpose. Her posture connotes resolve- she is forging ahead as if nothing could stand in her way. The folds of her skirt are slightly billowing with her movement and also perhaps a slight gust of wind has blown her hair back as she rounds the bend. Maybe she is bringing music to the quiet desert. The artist created this image to show the woman whose presence is natural but at ease with an object of technology, of music. Music is as old as civilization, as old as birds. But the boombox is new, and without it the photograph could not be dated. Something I learned from this work that I could apply to my own is that it is okay to preserve a sense of mystery and leave the audience with a question. This image does not even show the subject’s face yet her demeanor, her determination, and her poise are perfectly communicated. I would love to make an image that is so beautiful and whose formal elements are so strong that it allows for the life of the image- its essence and purity- to resonate.

War Photographer

“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.” –Jim Nachtwey

                                                          "My Soul Cannot Rest"

Jim Nachtwey is a witness to human suffering, he is a recorder of injustice. The poignancy of his images resides in the smoldering anguish and sorrow, the wailing, weeping...tears that would never cease. The dichotomy is the pure emotion and the aftermath- what happens when one runs out of tears-when the crying becomes a hiccup and finally stops. The viewer wonders how the subject could have moved on with such deep physical and emotional scars, but life continues, and these people have chosen survival. The man who is maimed will live to see his children grow up right, to help his wife, to live with dignity. Nachtwey’s photographs give a voice to the humanity of the unseen.

 The quote, “Normal codes of behavior are suspended in war” summarizes both the atrocious acts committed during wartime and Jim Nachtwey’s access to photograph them. The gravity of Nachtwey’s images comes from two ideas- carnal (having to do with the body) and carnage. One of the ways we connect to other people is through our understanding of the body- it’s basic processes and needs. However when the body is no longer  ‘complete’, when it is maimed or mutilated we notice immediately and we might see the person as less like us or even ‘less human’. Nachtwey forces us to recognize this idea we hold and invites us to engage in the deeper question of what makes us a person.

The images of famines depict frightening, skeletal, almost un-human creatures. They are the gaunt, cadaverous, wasted, rawboned, withered, passing away- the nearly dead.  The photograph that stuck with me the most was the emaciated men crawling on all fours, where even the basic evolutionary trait of bipedalism has regressed to conserve energy. His skin stretches over his bones in the same way the thin woven mats drape over the wooden supports on the house. He is wearing no clothes, which in addition to his posture increases our sense of his desperation and animal nature. He seems so near to death- lacking possessions, clothes, even bodily flesh and this makes him mystic and terrifying. A sense of urgency lurches at us to feed him, to clothe him, to ‘give him back’ his humanity (which is the question).  His desperation is our panic, our lurching stomachs and watering eyes. It is not without a sense of fear that we would look into the man’s eyes. Could we digest that amount of longing, pain, or worse yet- total acceptance of his fate- slipping away into the great unknown.

 In addition to the carnal, relating to the physical/ animal aspect to us, is carnage or the flesh of slain men, a great and unusual slaughter and injury. The sickening feeling that comes from seeing a disfigured person and their broken body, raises the question that when everything is taken away, when the body is so close to death-is that person less human? We are haunted by the image, but it is not shock alone that draws us to them and could by itself be ‘othering’, it is that recognition of their (and our own) most basic human nature.  It is with an understanding of the injustice and especially their willingness to be photographed by Nachtwey that conveys they are still human. Their awareness of their situation is constant, perhaps it is this that communicates with us what it is to be human.

Nachtwey has developed a method of working through the situations he photographs. There exists an openness to the event, and a deep understanding/acceptance of his role as witness and recorder. He has his own ‘library of suffering’ in his head and from this library he can connect to his subjects while still staying centered within himself. In order to complete his work he must be mentally prepared and completely present, which means not acquiescing to his emotions. Nachtwey must act as a camera- merely absorbing information and the emotions of others within a framework of understanding the way events play out. His effectiveness is not in his deep empathy, although that is crucial to gaining the trust of his subjects, but in his ability to deal with fear and channel his emotions into the strength of an image. The opposite of maim is to cure, heal, remedy, fix, mend, or rebuild. The process of witnessing the atrocities and the suffering of people and recording it can facilitate the healing or at least open a dialogue to negotiate peace, as Nachtwey does, by seeing ourselves in ‘the other’.