I was lucky enough to stumble into the Fotografiska museum in Stockholm back in 2019. The exhibit that absolutely floored me was James Nachtwey - Memoria.
It was a major retrospective of his photojournalism work across the majority of his life. I did not know his name but I immediately recognized many of the photos. What impresses me about his work above and beyond his sheer bravery is how strong the compositions are even while being made in what is often complete chaos.
Those of us working in LF (or just starting like me) are probably rarely in the position where we must compose, focus, think about light, and avoid a bullet in the few seconds we might have to get the shot. It's clearly a different medium with a different purpose. Perhaps it represents something some of you do outside your LF work. Obviously, the hobby has space for many ways of experiencing it and practicing it.
At any rate, his work stuck with me over the past few years. It was a complete lark that I was in that place and time but the cosmos has a way of getting us to the right places...eventually.
Have any of you seen his work before? Or visited any of the Fotografiska exhibitions?
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