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Rangefinder Magazine
December 2003

Profile: Chuck Nacke by Robert Neubert
Dodging the Bullet

Palestinian children standing on a hillside near an Arab village in the West Bank.

California photojournalist Chuck Nacke was covering the early 1990s civil war in Soviet Georgia as he sat inside the remnants of a hotel late one night with a group of soldiers. The vodka was flowing freely as the men told stories and relaxed after a stressful day pursuing the enemy.

“ Back then I was working without body armor,” Nacke recalls. “All day I’d been shooting photos in jeans and my Photoflex shirt, with its company logo of a big eye inside a red and yellow triangle on the front. The soldiers turned out to be snipers. After we got into the second bottle of vodka, one of them pointed at my shirt, and was laughing with his buddies.

“ Later on, my translator told me the sniper had been talking about how many times that day he had the big eye of this crazy American photographer in his gun sight. Needless to say, I never wore that shirt in a live-fire situation again.”

Nacke may have literally dodged a bullet that day in Soviet Georgia, and others in covering what he calls the “Stan Wars” (conflicts in Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikstan, Kazikstan, Kurdistan), but it hasn’t deterred him from carrying out photojournalism and commercial photography assignments around the world.

A friend marks a headstone outside of Grozny in Chechnya.

Changing Focus
From the USA to Moscow
Since the late 1970s, Nacke fielded editorial assignments for magazines such as Time, Newsweek, Forbes, and Vanity Fair; corporate communication projects for companies such as Intel, AT&T, First Interstate Bank and Sun Microsystems; and advertising assignments for agencies such as BBDO and J. Walter Thompson.

By 1991 Nacke was getting bored with his career in the U.S. He quit The Picture Group, a hot news photo agency of the time, and headed off to Moscow under the accreditation of the Black Star photo agency.

“ I could see that the old Soviet Union was coming apart. I wanted to be there to document it photographically and to capture images of what would rise up in its place,” Nacke says.

Before he left the U.S., Nacke worked with Photoflex founder Gene Kester to develop a lighting kit that would fit into a standard-sized King Pelican Case. The case was modified to include two Photoflex LiteStands, three medium LiteDomes, two LitePanels, an adjustable Photoflex umbrella, two power heads, support cords and a power converter to accommodate the Soviet Union’s 240-volt current.

Funeral for a Russian Special Forces officer, who died in Chechnya. Taken at a cemetary near Moscow.	Babuskia Maria sits alone in her village within the closed 20 km zone around the Chernobyl nuclear station. In 1986 the worst nuclear accident took place at Chernobyl. Below: Dormatory in a Children’s Prison in the Ural Mountains, Russia.	Dormatory in a Children’s Prison in the Ural Mountains, Russia.

When he arrived in Moscow, Nacke soon learned he was the only person in the city with such a sophisticated lighting setup. He employed all of it in photographing articles on the country’s emerging business market for Fortune and Forbes, obtaining specific images desired by the art directors back in the U.S. Other major assignments for Forbes included skiing in the Caucasus Mountains and the Nokia headquarters in nearby Finland.

Nacke photographed world leaders ranging from Russian President Boris Yeltsin to the Dalai Lama. He did studio shoots for ad agencies such as BBDO and Ketchum, and for local print media advertising of international products ranging from Sweet’N Low to GTE mobile phones.

“ To me, one of the most important and interesting assignments was photographing for Smithsonian Magazine the magnificent Amber Room that was being recreated at the Catharine Palace of the Tsarskoye Selo Museum outside St. Petersburg,” Nacke states. “The Amber Room had graced the summer palace of the czars, and was considered the Eighth Wonder of the World before it was disassembled and stolen by the German army during World War II. I put the entire lighting kit to use, and the softboxes were invaluable for showing details of the extraordinary recreation of the original panels that was under way.”

Rev. Jesse Jackson during his bid for the U.S. Presidentcy.	Rev. Billy Graham during his last sermon in San Francisco

The painstakingly recreated Amber Room finally debuted in late May as part of St. Petersburg’s 300th anniversary, with Russian President Vladimir Putin unveiling it along with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder. Several dozen world leaders were on hand.

Armed with a nationwide press pass that provided access throughout the Soviet Union as well as reduced travel and lodging rates, Nacke loved working in this period of tumultuous change.

Not content with editorial and advertising work, Nacke covered conflicts in the “Stan Wars” for newsmagazines and top photo agencies, such as Black Star in New York and Gamma in Paris.

Nacke saw firsthand the dramatic fall of the Soviet Union and its evolution into a group of independent republics. He wound up living in Moscow for six years.

Victorious opposition fighter in front of burning Georgian Presidential Palace. Image photographed for TIME Magazine.

Eventually Nacke felt that Moscow had begun to look like New York with its proliferation of ATMs, pizzerias, burger joints and trendy U.S. fashions and music. He returned to the States, married, had a child, and settled in the heart of Silicon Valley with his wife and daughter.

Today Nacke continues his career in photojournalism and corporate communication, working through Woodfin Camp & Associates in New York City. He’s also enthused about his web site (http://chucknacke.com), which features his photography as well as a section called The Zine that showcases the work of other photographers.

Robert Neubert runs a communication consulting practice in Monterey, Calif. He has contributed to publications ranging from Rolling Stone to Sports Illustrated, and has had articles published on photographers such as Brett Weston.