You can visit his website at this link. I was interested in the Magnum photo that Kate selected as it echoes one of Nachtwey's famous images from Grozney, Chechnya in 1996.
Do you think that the photo has a different impact when the subject in the foreground is looking away from the camera or directly at the camera?
It's always jarring to have the subject of a documentary photograph turn their gaze back on the viewer, breaking down that third wall that the observer of the photograph generally feels like they are safely hidden behind. When the subject gets so close to the camera, we feel all of a sudden as if we are uncomfortably close to the situation that at first, we were only a witness to from a distance. What I'm having trouble deciding is which of Nachtwey's Chechnya images is more haunting (the one on the cover of the film is slightly different, with the boy looking directly into the camera). I think both are impactful because of the obvious destruction behind him, even though it is out of focus. One seems to beg for help, while the other leaves us wondering what has caught his attention outside of the frame, essentially what else is going on that we are completely ignorant of?
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