i remember the first time i discovered nachtwey. there was a documentary on him playing on arte. as an avid hobby photographer, i’m always interested in documentaries about photographers or photography in general.
i still remember clearly some of the pictures nachtwey took of an armless beggar and his family in jakarta. how the beggar, with his one arm, was bathing his son on the side of a river located near the railroad tracks on which they lived.
i know what those rivers look like; they’re muddy brown, dark green or black, so dirty are they. and the smell is oppressive. my family and i have passed such rivers many a time while sitting comfortably inside an air conditioned car with black tinted windows – windows that discourage beggars like him to approach, windows that make it easier to ignore the poverty, sheltering us from the suffering, giving us a safe haven.
and despite his conditions and what he had to live through, the beggar didn’t give up. he got up day after day, facing people whose ignorance and fear made them turn their heads and hearts away, and asked for just a little bit of money to make it through another day.
through it all, he was still caring and loving with his family. the government of indonesia didn’t care about him. most people in jakarta didn’t care about him. though somehow, through the kindness of others, and sometimes i think maybe through the grace of god, he gets by.
thinking of him always moves me to tears.
another family nachtwey photographed lived on the sides of the railroad tracks in jakarta. their living quarters were literally an arm’s length away from the moving trains. so when the mother cooked – squatting in front of her small wok which was poised over the sides of the tracks – and a train passed by, everything rattled and shook.
to be honest, until that night when the documentary aired, i had never seen what jakarta looked like for some people.
i wonder about what happened to those two families. if they ever did manage to get out of the train tracks or not. if the beggar still begs. if i’ve ever seen him knock on the car door.
it takes a special courage to stare despair, injustice, cruelness, hopelessness, tragedy, ignorance, ruthlessness – all of it – in the face. to not shy away from or get beaten by it all. and for that, i greatly admire nachtwey.
nachtwey’s silence, his reluctance to talk about what he’s witnessed, is as loud as his pictures. i personally am silenced when i’m humbled or disturbed by or in awe of something. to me, talking about hugely significant emotional events sometimes only dilutes their significance.
i think some pictures are worth few or no words, because more would cheapen the value. and so it is with nachtwey’s.
Tags: journalism, nachtwey, photography
