The Style of James Nashville's Works

For ordinary people, war photographers are full of too many dramatic elements, and Nachtwey's simplicity and simplicity are beyond people's imagination. White shirt, jeans, shoulder camera bag. This is all the equipment of Nachtwey. No helmet, no body armor. He wouldn't get into an armored car or something, but quietly got into the trench, listening to stray bullets flying by his ears and waiting for the shutter, as if God had blessed his life. He never speaks and never presses the shutter easily. When other reporters shoot quickly, Nachtwey often just waits because he knows when the required images will arrive.

Nachtwey has been using Canon film SLR cameras for many years, mostly with wide-angle zoom lenses, one for each host. Canon digital SLR cameras have been used in recent years. Black-and-white film, such as color reversal films and Tri-X, is the main feature of the film. After the film is finished, it will be sent directly to Time magazine or taken back to his studio in new york for printing. Nachtwey's color photography expresses the tragic war, the depression of the environment or people's mental state with exaggerated but undistorted color contrast. He is good at quickly determining the exposure according to experience and mental arithmetic in complex light, so that the exposure of the reversal film is accurate, the light and shade are unique, and it has strong visual tension and scene depth, so that the image subject is closely combined with the background environment. However, black-and-white movies are not limited to the routines of his predecessors. All kinds of exaggerated perspective and unique composition, such as shadows and depth of field, greatly enrich and enliven the picture, expand the information and enhance the appeal. And all this is the success of reporting pictures.

For the picture, the perfect thought and road structure are not more and more important because of its own existence, but the greater advantage is that they help to express the theme of the picture. It is probably a psychological war for every photographer to give up the carefully designed expected composition and seize the moment of straightforward expression. However, Nacht Wei knows that the audience cares more about the hero of the picture and will not waste more time bragging about the photographer's skills and ideas. Therefore, he focuses on clear information expression, so that we are often attracted by his subject matter and ignore his superb technical accumulation.

The style of Nachtwey's works is formed by his unique views and ways of treating people and things. As he said, he shoots quietly and slowly, treats others with respect and touches others with respect. He communicates with people through language and gestures, so people take part in the filming. His works should not be classified as the so-called "snap shot", but a kind of humanized shooting that is not sudden, full of attention and accurate judgment. Most of Nachtwey's works, as he himself said, "were shot in the most familiar places of residence". His photography is close to the subject and also conveys this feeling of closeness to the viewer. Close-range shooting with a wide-angle lens creates an immersive sense of interaction with the environment, thus breaking the sense of distance generated by the telephoto lens and the indifferent attitude brought to the viewer. This perspective effect intercepts and reproduces the real feelings, which makes people not only understand the picture information from a unique perspective, but also deeply understand the environment where the photographer and the subject are located.

Photographer David Thorne's works show us Nachtwey at work. Three photographers are shooting a militia with machine guns, two of them are lying on the ground 20 feet away, shooting with telephoto lenses; Nachtwey's action is just like what he said: "I am only the distance of his gun butt, sitting straight, and his finger is almost pointing at my shutter."