PPW - Magnum Degrees - Image 15, Page 15

[brambor]

Picture Per Week - A book discussion of Magnum Degrees

The picture is missing from Magnum's web site so I scanned it and

included it as a part of this post. Sorry for butchering the scan as

I would have to rip the page off the book to get the whole picture.

Looks like every time a photographer departs Magnum then the picture

are deleted. I wonder what is Nachtwey's story?

 

 

James Nachtwey Croatian Militiaman Attacking Muslims. Mostar. Bosnia-

Herzegovina. 1993

 

War is sad. This documentary picture shows a gunman firing from an

apartment bedroom through the window blinds acting as a camouflage.

This documents perfectly the kind of warfare that was going on in

the former Yugoslavia. Apartment buildings became bunkers. What once

was a place to live and raise family is now a room where people kill

or get killed. I like the fact that the bedroom's artifacts are

still in place like the bed, bedsheets, pillows, messed up wallpaper

or the remnants of the light fixture. The shining sunlight through

the blinders reflecting on the open door give you a great feeling of

being there. As if Nachtwey just opened the door in midday and

witnessed this scene.<div></div>

[brambor]

correction. This is image 14 and not 15 as I originaly posted.

[christopher.]

It never ceases to amaze me that someone would risk thier life even if they don't believe in the cause just to show the world what is happening in a particular situation in the world. Just to get the shot. Wow. And a great picture as well.

[roland_schmid]

Rene,

 

Nachtwey left Magnum a couple of years ago, That's why you don't find him on Magnum's web site. He founded his own agency.

[kent_tolley2]

I would never think of suggesting this master shoot differently but this shot seems too far away. I am not interested in the bed in the foreground but I am interested in the features of the shooter's face. The blinds and a few clues are enough to tell me he's shooting from a residence. Recently we discussed the immediacy and the involvement a viewer feels when looking at a shot by a wide angle lens. This shot has a distance and remoteness from the action that some of the forum members described as resulting from a tele lens. I wouldn't think this would have been one of Nachtwey's keepers and I bet in the series there are better, closer, more revealing shots of this conflict and ethnic cleansing.

[hugo drax]

http://www.viiphoto.com/

 

James is a PJ and his job is to capture a story which this image does. Not all Pictures need to be tight crops of people etc.. if they were all this way it would be boring and cut out elements of the story. When shooting for a story the primary job is to capture the story on film emulsion or digital file and this means giving the viewer enough information to get a feel for the story. Sometimes this means a tight crop other times it means going loose. This is a fine image and does convey the situation as expected. Not all pictures are supposed to have this single focal point that draws your eye, especially PJ work where every bit contributes to the story.

[EricM]

just like your gay cat pics there King?

[joe_murphy1]

Much as I admire Nachtwey's work I have to agree with Kent on this one. Much is to be admired of N's bravery and there's a certain immediacy to this shot but still... there's too much to distract the viewer here; especially the busy patterns in the furniture and finishes--frankly, it would be busy as a spread in House and Garden. The large portion of the frame dedicated to the door is problematic.

 

And, I must add... were I the 'shooter' I'd rip the freaking blind out of the window and stand back as far as possible to cover the fields of fire. But I'm funny that way.

[andrew_somerset1]

Nachtwey shoots symbolism. The point isn't the guy with the rifle, it's where he is. The war here has invaded the most private of domestic spaces, wrecked the light fixtures and torn the wallpaper from the walls.

 

Take out all that "clutter" and you lose all that. All you have is somebody firing a rifle out a window. Quite apart from which, staying away from the window is a good idea from the perspective of staying alive.

[kent_tolley2]

Andrew makes good points. War from the bedroom is a good story. Especially this war which was neighbor against neighbor. These people had lived together for generation all during Tito. Their kids had played together in the street. And it's dangerous over by that window, I agree. Still I wish N was a tad closer so I could see some of the face of this shooter. It's in the faces of these people that I look for reasons for this madness. Where else am I going to find it? Like I said, it's presumptuous to tell this master how to shoot. This IS a good pic. I think it could be better if closer. Use a WA if you must include the context of the bedroom. He's good at WA I learned.

[kent_tolley2]

This probably IS WA. That's why subject seems so far away. I dunno. Good discussion with lots to learn.

[el_fang]

I agree that the picture works as it is. Isolating a single subject shows a rather infantile stage in the development of a photographer. It's the easiest thing to do compositionally because it doesn't require much skill, but it's boring.

<p>On the other hand, a carefully considered composition of subject and subtle supporting elements is the domain of the master photographer such as Nachtwey. You do have to be a bit above the level of Philistine to appreciate this, however.

[kent_tolley2]

You overstate your case. Nobody has failed to appreciate this picture. And wanting to see some of the shooters face is NOT isolating the subject.

[eliot_rosen1]

It is a good wartime image. It captures a moment in urban warfare and conveys the feeling what it must be like to someone who has never observed this firsthand. The only comment I might make is that the title "Croatian militiaman attacking muslims" does not necessarily compute. The man might be defending his home against muslims and not "attacking". The picture doesn't give me a clue as to who is "attacking" whom.

[kent_tolley2]

My recollection of this crisis is that the attack came from the Christian Serbs and the victims were often old men and women and even children that were Muslim. It is hard to imagine the Muslim population of Bosnia or later Kosovo as *attacking* the Serbian, racially motivated nationalists.

[eliot_rosen1]

Kent with all due respect you are entirely wrong. Then and moreso now muslims are slaughtering Christians in Kosovo and other places. They are not the innocents you make them out to be. Given the chance (which our interference did), they have proven they can be even more murderous than Serbs or Croats.

[andrew_somerset1]

Kent, beware of simplistic explanations of the mess in the former Yugoslavia. Ask people who were there with the U.N. or any other independent group, and a much more complicated picture emerges.

[Spearhead]

<i>The only comment I might make is that the title "Croatian militiaman attacking muslims" does not necessarily compute. </i><p>

 

If Natcheway gave it this title, I'd expect it to be far more accurate than <i>anything</i> someone on photo.net might suggest about it.

[eliot_rosen1]

"If Natcheway gave it this title, I'd expect it to be far more accurate than anything someone on photo.net might suggest about it."

 

On the conrary, it is not inappropriate for someone on pnet to suggest that a photojournalist might have an agenda or an interpretation that is at least arguable. It is not a knock on the quality of the image, but PJ's tend to show one side of a story. There is always another side. PJs are not the arbiters of truth.

[Spearhead]

Natcheway was there and you weren't.

 

That makes it pretty obvious to me. Someone who wasn't there, has never been there, and doesn't know what Natcheway knows - well it's clear to me who I'd trust.

[eliot_rosen1]

Jeff, what you say is true as far as it goes. I wasn't there and didn't see this particular event. So you may be right. But I do know that Muslims in that region have committed atrocities some of which pale in comparison to what Serbs and Croats have done. My point is that you might get a biased picture of what is going on if you look at images showing "Croats attacking Muslims". This is something that PJs do not do well - that is, to show both sides of a story. I can point out other examples of this kind of thing.

[eliot_rosen1]

Sorry, should have said some atrocities committed by Muslims make anything that the Serbs and Croats have done pale in comparison.

[andrew_somerset1]

Eliot, you're vastly overstating the case. The atrocities committed by various Serb paramilitaries in Bosnia were the worst of the war. Although all sides committed atrocities (and although NATO overstated Serb atrocities in Kosovo), the Serbs were responsible for the Srebrenica massacre and for concentration camps with systematic rapes. Your first statement was correct: subsequent reprisal killings in Bosnia and Kosovo pale in comparison to Serb atrocities in the Bosnian war.

 

The idea of a Croat fighter attacking Muslims is not in the least implausible especially given that the Croats were aggressors in the Bosnian war. It was the Croats who carved an additional chunk out of Bosnia, not the other way around. So while it is possible that this man is defending his own home, to suggest that Nachtwey's caption distorts the situation is indefensible.

[eliot_rosen1]

Andrew, here is a quote from Michael Parenti's website:

 

"Of the various Yugoslav peoples, the Serbs were targeted for demonization because they were the largest nationality and the one most opposed to the breakup of Yugoslavia. But what of the atrocities they committed? All sides committed atrocities in the fighting that has been encouraged by the western powers over the last decade, but the reporting has been consistently one-sided.

 

Grisly incidents of Croat and Muslim atrocities against the Serbs rarely made it into the U.S. press, and when they did they were accorded only passing mention. 1 Meanwhile Serb atrocities were played up and sometimes even fabricated, as we shall see. Recently, three Croatian generals were indicted by the Hague War Crimes Tribunal for the bombardment and deaths of Serbs in Krajina and elsewhere. Where were the U.S. television crews when these war crimes were being committed? John Ranz, chair of Survivors of the Buchenwald Concentration Camp, USA, asks: Where were the TV cameras when hundreds of Serbs were slaughtered by Muslims near Srebrenica? 2 The official line, faithfully parroted in the U.S. media, is that Bosnian Serb forces committed all the atrocities at Srebrenica."

 

This is the sort of thing that the press does all of the time. Selective reporting. At this point in time, the Muslims (mostly ethnic Albanians) are conducting killings of Serbs and other minorities in Kosovo, abducting military age Serbian men, killing old men and children. You don't hear much about it in the press, but it is going on.

[eliot_rosen1]

Here is something something by Thomas Worthington - Sun media. I have selected a few paragraphs.

 

"Canada's former ambassador to Yugoslavia, James Bissett, argued

against the war, and history is proving him right. Truth in

Kosovo -- the Balkans -- is cloaked in half-truths and

propaganda."

 

"The documentary shows Madeleine Albright, first as UN ambassador

and later as U.S. Secretary of State, not only opposing Serbs,

but mindlessly endorsing Bosnia and eager for war in Kosovo."

 

"Video footage shows Albright rejecting evidence that Bosnians

bombed or mortared their own people, then blaming the Serbs in

order to persuade NATO to attack the Serbs -- a ploy as ancient

as warfare itself, and repeatedly proven both in Bosnia and

Kosovo."

 

"The supposed massacre at Racak, in Kosovo, which lit the fuse for

the 78-day air war, has been shown to be a hoax -- dead Kosovo

Liberation Army (KLA) fighters (since given military funerals)

were arranged in a gully to appear as if massacred, complete with

mutilations and torture -- proclaimed by both Albright and

Clinton."

This sort of thing does not give me confidence in what I read about the situation in the newspapers.