Background
Kenji Nagai grew up in Imabari, Ehime, Japan, and graduated from Imabari Nishi High School. Nagai attended Tokyo Keizai University (東京経済大学), and after graduation he studied abroad in the United States for a year. After his return to Japan, Nagai held a part-time job before embarking upon his career as a freelance journalist.
Working as a contract photojournalist for Tokyo's AFP News, Nagai was accustomed to traveling to dangerous places in the Middle East. From 1997 until his death, Nagai took assignments in Afghanistan, Cambodia, the Palestinian territories, and Iraq, taking photographs that captured the essence of war.
Nagai arrived in Burma two days before the government began attacking Buddhist monks protesting against the military junta that has ruled the country since deposing the democratic government in a 1962 coup d'état. The protests originally began when the government raised the price of fuel, but grew into mass demonstrations in the tens of thousands, with Buddhist monks leading pro-democracy marches in the streets of Yangon.
According to The Times, an associate of Nagai's said he was "relentless" when it came to covering a story, believing that he had to travel to "the places nobody wants to go."
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