Review of War Photographer (2001) by Liam D — 01 Dec 2010

War Photographer is a visually stunning and facinating account of James Nachtwey's profession as a photo-journalist who specialises in war photography. The documentary follows Nachtwey's journey to war torn countries in search of photographs to sell to magazines. These shots are more of the aftermath of battles rather than shots of the battle themselves. War Photographer shows the human side of war and the devastation caused to peoples lives because of it. I feel War Photographer focuses too much on Nachtway's over inflated ego and his assent up the media ladder. In the scene where he follows the Indonesian family around Jakarta taking pictures of them he doesn't offer any assistance, which I thought was wrong as he, no doubt, earned tens of thousands of dollars when the shots were published in Time Magazine.

War Photographer is a good visual account of war photography that focuses too much on one man and doesn't fully see the bigger picture.