Anderson Cooper interviews one of his journalism role models

60 Minutes Overtime This week I have a story in 60 minutes about James Nockway. You can see that there's terror in his eyes. Probably one of the greatest war photographers of all time. What influenced you early on to become a war photographer? The main influence was the work of the photographers during the Vietnam War and the American Civil Rights Movement. I had no background in photography. I'd never used a camera. I didn't know anything about it.

But I think the cumulative effect of the work of those photographs really moved me and I think it moved the nation. James Nockway's photographs, like all the great war photographers' photographs, they showed not just the action of combat and the bang bang. There are pictures that have a point of view and they tell a story. And the story is the horror of war, the reality of war, for the people who are fighting, for the people who are caught in the middle, for everybody involved. These are Mujahideen praying during the war against the Russians up in the Hindu Kush in the Kudar Valley. This is the Berlin Wall. As it was falling, I'm in West Berlin and this hand is reaching over from East Berlin.

This is a riot on the border between Greece and Macedonia when the Macedonians tried to block the border. You can see just hands are so expressive in so many different situations. This is the story I was working on on tuberculosis in Cambodia. This is a story about Agent Orange in Vietnam, a mother exercising her daughter who was deformed because of Agent Orange. There are many ways of telling stories, but still a photo has a power that is unlike anything else. An image of a child in distress when it's seen by a parent anywhere in the world will relate to that picture. It doesn't matter.

There are culture, there are nationality, there are religion or anything else. I'll just make a human connection with that child. It's very natural. And I think that's the case with photography, when you're showing humanity and people react in a human way and all the other categories vanish. He's somebody who I've idolized and it's incredible to me that at the age he is, he is still out there exposing himself, risking his life as he has done for four decades. Without a doubt, you have been the person who made me interested in wanting to do this line of work, so I just wanted to say thank you. I'm very honored to hear that.

Thank you for telling me. We live in an age where journalism is, you know, a lot of people don't think very highly of it. And to me, James Knackway is a great example of just how important it can be and how beautiful it can be and how moving it can be. How is it that you have been able to continue doing this? I think it has real social value that before we can solve problems, we have to identify them. And I think the work of journalists and of photojournalists is to identify issues that need to be dealt with by society.

60 Minutes, CBS News, Anderson Cooper, James Nachtwey