THE OTHER SIDE OF THE LENS

A week before the April 1994 elections that plucked South Africa from the brink of civil war and invested Nelson Mandela as its first democratic leader, government troops opened fire on a group of journalists near Johannesburg. As South African photographer Greg Marinovich fell to the ground, wounded, American photographer James Nachtwey began pulling him to safety. Then Nachtwey noticed that another colleague, Ken Oosterbroek, had also been hit. "I laid Greg down, told him I'd be back, and as I was crawling to Ken, one of the soldiers fired," recalls Nachtwey. cnn caught what came next. As he scrambled across the street, a bullet passed so close to Nachtwey's head that it literally parted his hair. When he reached his friend, Oosterbroek was dead.

For his work in South Africa, Nachtwey -- whose photos have appeared almost exclusively in TIME since 1984 -- received the Robert Capa Gold Medal, the fourth time he has won this award. His next assignment, Rwanda, brought Nachtwey both the Magazine Photographer of the Year Award (his sixth) and, for his portrait of a Hutu man mutilated for refusing to take part in the killing of Tutsi, the World Press Photo of the Year (his second).

He thus becomes the first photographer ever to win three of his profession's most coveted awards in a single year. The achievement confirms Nachtwey's place as the pre-eminent photojournalist of his time. His work reflects an iconic intensity that at times seems almost religious-appropriate for a man so moved by suffering that he cannot turn away from the tragedies he records. Nor can anyone else who sees, and is haunted by, his powerful images.