Nachtwey, born in 1948 in Syracuse, N.Y., grew up in Leominster, Massachusetts, USA and studied Art History and Political Science at Dartmouth from 1966-70. These were years of radical politics in our universities and Nachtwey like the rest of us breathed the heady air of the student movement. After leaving Dartmouth he got work on merchant ships, and it was during this time he decided to become a photographer, inspired by the effect of pictures from the Vietnam war on the American people and, eventually, US policy.
He set about teaching himself photography, studying books and hiring darkroom space so he could learn to develop and print his work. Most importantly, he learnt from the work of other photographers. The seventies was a decade when interest in photography was growing rapidly, with photography galleries setting up and an upsurge in the publishing of photographic monographs. Nachtwey was able to learn from the work of the great photojournalists such as Henri Cartier-Bresson, Gene Smith, Josef Koudelka, Don McCullin.
Nachtwey practised the lessons he learnt from the masters in his own work, making a living while he learnt as an apprentice news film editor and then a truck driver. Both occupations no doubt also added to his useful skills. By 1976 he was able to take on his first photographic job, for a local newspaper in New Mexico. Again he built up his skills, working for the paper for four years, and in 1980 came to New York, looking for work as a freelance photographer.
There is a kind of quiet determination and persistence shown in this story of becoming a photographer. Working away, studying the medium and its achievements, improving his own photography, then the long apprenticeship on local news before coming to the city to be a photojournalist. Looking back, there could have been little better way to prepare for his later career than studying politics and the history of art, and the various jobs he took brought him into contact with ordinary people and also provided skills in editing.
His career also upholds my long-held belief (despite having worked 30 years in education) that - if you can do it - the best way to learn is to teach yourself. Courses are for those who don't possess the ability or drive to make their own way. Occasionally they can provide a short-cut to learning simple skills and they give motivation to those who lack it. Fortunately formal qualifications are only required for the more routine and trivial of photographic jobs, and for photojournalism it is what you have down on photographic paper that is important.
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http://www.jamesnachtwey.com/