PHOTOGRAPHY PROJECT
James Nachtwey- “Mourning”
Alba E. Rita, Paula S
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1.INTRODUCTION
3
2. AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
3
Other photographs
4
3.OBSERVATION SKILLS
5
The story
5
4.TECHNICAL KNOWLEDGE
5
5.CONTEXT, MEANING AND SYMBOL
6
6.CONCLUSION
6
7.BIBLIOGRAPHY
7
1.INTRODUCTION We are Paula, Alba and Rita and we did this project about photography in the english class, we chose this photo because the situation of these people that have their own countries in the middle of a war inspires us. We are going to tell you about this photograph and its composition. First, Paula is going to tell us about the author’s biography, then, Alba will explain the observation skills, Paula will tell us about the technical knowledge, and last but not least, Rita is going to explain the symbols and metaphors of this picture.
2. AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
James Nachtwey was born on March 14, 1948 in Syracuse and he is a war photographer. He grew up in Massachusetts and he studied art history and political sciences. He started working in 1976 in New Mexico. His first mission was in Northern Ireland in 1981. He worked in South Africa, Latin America, Russia, Eastern Europe… He has been working for Time magazine since 1984. He is one of the founding member of the VII Photo Agency. He received a lot of awards. Some of them are the Princess of Asturias Award for communication and humanities, the TED prize, the Heinz Award in arts and humanities...
Other photographs
“Hutu survivor” This photograph was taken in Rwanda in 1994. It’s one of the most famous Nachtwey's pictures. In the picture there is a man with terrible scars on his face. This man was punished because he didn’t want to kill tutsis. The hutus and the tutsis are two ethnic groups. These two ethnic groups have been fighting since 1973 and the tutsis killed more than a million hutus.
This photograph was taken in El Salvador in 1984. In the photograph there is a helicopter and three girls trying to avoid the sand.
3.OBSERVATION SKILLS In this picture there is a woman in a cemetery. The woman is covered with a dirty dark burqa so the woman is muslim. The burqa only lets see the woman’s hand. We think that the woman is young because her hand doesn’t have any wrinkles. She is sitting on the ground and she is touching a grave with a white fabric on its base. We think she is sad because of the death of a relative. She might be thinking about her dead relative and the moments she spent with him or her. On the background there are a lot of other graves. The ground is dry and fissured. We think the photo was taken about 40 years ago because the graves are very rudimentary. The subject of the photograph is the death of the loved ones.
The story The woman lived with her parents and her brother in Arabia. Her parents couldn’t find a work so one day all the family went to America to have a better life. When the woman arrived in America she was 12 years old and her brother 10 years old. The woman studied to be a doctor and her brother decided to be a soldier. Her brother went to fight to Asia and Africa. The brother wrote letters every week for his family but one day, when the woman was 25, the brother stopped writing letters. The family thought that the brother had been killed in a battle so the sister decided to go to Africa and look for him. A few years later the woman found her brother’s grave and she decided to become a war doctor to save soldiers’ lifes.
4.TECHNICAL KNOWLEDGE We think the photographer was standing when he took the photo because the picture was taken from a low angle. The photographer took the picture from above because the woman is in her knees. In this photo the principal element (the girl), is surrounded by the cemetery, that gives an image of loneliness and sadness. The quality of the lighting is very bad because the picture is old. The light is natural because the woman is in the outside. The light comes from the sky because of the sun. The photo is in black and white, so we can’t say if the light is bright or dark. The light is soft and diffuse.The woman is focused because she is the main element of the picture. The light doesn’t draw our attention to any element of the photo. The cemetery and the woman are inside the frame. We think that the cemetery is near a mosque, because cemeteries are usually near religious temples. We think the photographer frame the picture this way because he wanted to stand out the woman. The cropping makes us feel sad because the woman is alone in the cemetery with her dead relative. The cropping draws our attention to the woman because she is in the middle of the photo. The woman is the main element because of the cropping, and maybe, before the cropping was made, the woman was off-centered, and this took away the importance of her.
We think that the purpose of this picture is for a magazine article, because it would fit in very well in a war article. The photographer wanted to explain us the consequences of the war. It doesn’t explain anything about the time period because this type of things are happening now too. To us, the photo is very sad and painful because the woman is passing through a very hard and difficult situation. It makes us think about how lucky we are living in a country without wars, and makes us value the importance of each human life.
5.CONTEXT, MEANING AND SYMBOL The absence of colours express the woman’s feeling of desolation. We could interpret the dryness and the sterility of the landscape as a metaphor for the emptiness of the woman’s heart, the fact that there is no future for them and the ribbon in the tomb could symbolize the link between the dead relative and the woman.
6.CONCLUSION We think that this is the best photo because with a few elements it can reflect the actual situation of many countries all around the world. While we were doing this project we improved our writing skills, we learnt how to work in group and now we know how to analyse a photograph in a very smart way.
7.BIBLIOGRAPHY Bueno,Ruiz; “Las cicatrices de Jim” [http://novadehistoria.com/las-cicatrices-de-jim/], [accessed June 1st.] Discola, “10 fotografías de James Nachtwey” [http://listas.eleconomista.es/fotografia/10131-10-fotografias-de-james-nachtwey], [accessed June 2nd] Duarte, Shakira; “James Nachtwey: Fotógrafo de Guerra” [https://clubdefotografia.net/james-nachtwey/], [accessed June 1st.] El País, “James Nachtwey el fotógrafo que estaba allí [https://elpais.com/elpais/2016/11/08/fotorrelato/1478559912_147855.html#foto_gal_6 ], [accessed June 2nd.] Lago, Loly; 3º ESO Academic Year 2017- 2018 [https://www.edu.xunta.gal/centros/iesfene/aulavirtual2/course/view.php?id=147], [accessed June 1st.] Pastoriza, Francisco; “James Nachtwey, el mejor fotoperiodista de guerra” [https://periodistas-es.com/james-nachtwey-mejor-fotoperiodismo-guerra-70751], [accessed June 1st.] Vila, Carles; “James Nachtwey: Me aprovecho de la desgracia ajena” [https://miquelpellicer.com/2016/05/james-nachtwey-premio-princesa-asturias/], [accessed June 1st.] Wikipedia contributors, “James Nachtwey” [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Nachtwey], [accessed June 2nd.]