James Nachtwey

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 became a photographer in order to be a war photographer, and a photographer involved in what I thought were critical social issues. From the very beginning this was my goal.

I don't think tragic situations are necessarily devoid of beauty.

I try to use whatever I know about photography to be of service to the people I'm photographing.

If you want to connect with people who are in distress and great grief and scared, you need to do it in a certain way. I move kind of slow. I talk kind of slow. I let them know that I respect them.

[Photography] puts a human face on issues which, from afar, can appear abstract or ideological or monumental in their global impact.

If Im feeling outraged, grief, disbelief, frustration, sympathy, that gets channeled through me and into my pictures and hopefully transmitted to the viewer.