James Nachtwey's "Inferno"

Pictures from an exhibition -- in hell.

By Douglas Cruickshank

Apr 10, 2000 | "Inferno," the recently published book by photojournalist James Nachtwey, is big (11 by 15 inches, two-and-a-quarter inches thick), heavy and covered in black cloth, costs $125 and contains 382 large, vivid and extraordinary black-and-white photographs on its 480 pages. And it's not pretty. Indeed, it's a guided tour of hell, or at least the past 10 years of hell as it's been played out in places like Romania, Somalia, India, Sudan, Bosnia, Rwanda, Zaire, Chechnya and Kosovo.

The book opens with this epigraph from Dante's "Inferno": "Through me is the way to the sorrowful city. Through me is the way to join the lost people." And then, following a short, elegant introduction by Luc Sante, off we go, into the Inferno, accompanying Nachtwey on his nightmare mission. It's heartbreakingly bad stuff and grotesquely exquisite, too. It's the worst news there is and, needless to say, continues at this moment.

Nachtwey, born in Syracuse, N.Y., in 1948 (he grew up in Massachusetts), is one of the world's most widely published and abundantly honored photographers. He has received the Robert Capa Gold Medal an unprecedented five times, he's a contract photographer for Time, where much of his work is first published, and he's a member of Magnum Photos. "Inferno" is his first book since 1989's "Deeds of War," which is now out of print.

On a recent afternoon, we talked for nearly an hour about "Inferno" and his experiences as a documenter and archivist of human catastrophe. Reticent about discussing his own life beyond the basic facts, he's clearly one of those rare characters who focus singularly on their work with a missionary-like sense of purpose. "I don't want people to be concerned about me," he told me. "I want them to be concerned about the people in the pictures."

First, let's talk about the book itself, as an object. In your afterword, you say that most of the pictures were originally used in mass publications -- newsmagazines, such as Time. Now they've been packaged in this very elegant, rarefied form -- a large, expensive and lavishly printed coffee-table book. Is presenting these harrowing, photojournalistic images in this way at odds with your original intent of making them as broadly available as possible?

Not at all. The primary function of my photographs is to be in mass-circulation publications -- during the time that the events are happening. I want them to become part of people's daily dialogue and create public awareness, public opinion, that can help bring pressure for change. That's the first and most important use of my work. A secondary use is to become an archive, entered into our collective memory, so that these events are never forgotten. That's the purpose of "Inferno."

It's meant to immerse the viewer in a reality that's relentless. We wanted to make the actual dimensions of the book quite large so that it has a physical weight and physical impact. It's awkward. You can't really put it anywhere. And you've got to reckon with it.

We had quite a discussion about the physical production of the book. We didn't want to do a small book that was produced cheaply and you could forget it and toss it off. The quality of the printing is a product of the respect we wanted people to have for the subjects in the book.

In looking through these images -- they're really pictures of hell on Earth, many of the worst human catastrophes that have occurred over the last decade or so -- I also found myself thinking of the person behind the camera: you. And it occurred to me that, while the photographs are in black and white, you've seen these scenes in color. I know it's odd to ask, given that the people you photograph have been so terribly damaged, but what has it taken out of you?

You're right, whatever I've had to bear is nothing in relation to what the people I photographed have had to bear. What's happened to me is not important.

Why not?

Because I'm a messenger. I don't want people to be concerned about me. I want them to be concerned about the people in the pictures. I try to use whatever I know about photography to be of service to the people I'm photographing. I'm trying not to create photographs that viewers will look at and think: "What a good photographer he is," or "Look what an interesting composition he can make." I want the first impact, and by far the most powerful impact, to be about an emotional, intellectual and moral reaction to what is happening to these people. I want my presence to be transparent.

How do you manage to keep going back into these horrific situations?

You have to have a sense of purpose.

What's given you that sense of purpose?

It was, in fact, why I became a photographer in the first place -- to do this kind of work, to be a war photographer, to deal with social issues and struggles. I felt it was the most worthwhile thing I could do. For me, it has become a tool of social awareness, not something for the sake of photography itself. And doing it has reconfirmed my initial inspiration.

Next Page: How much can people bear?

• View blog reactions