# data[].attributes.body
"Openness to experience can provide creative individuals with constant sources of questions, ideas, and problems. Openness to experience also characterized by the willingness to try something new and different." (Starko, p. 108). Although Lyndsey Addario did not begin her career in photojournalism, her experiences opened new doors for her and helped her to access more experiences that she hadn't planned for. With a background in international relations, her knowledge of languages including Spanish and Italian, and the desire to discover other cultures, Addario lived in Argentina—where she discovered photojournalism's power to covey ideas and emotions—and lived in India and Afghanistan where she continued to explore other cultures. After the World Trade Center Attacks of September 11th, Addario noted that because of her prior experience in Afghanistan under Taliban rule, "it seemed natural to go back to this place I was quite familiar with".  Addario's continued openness to experiences allowed her to try things that were new and different and forced her to open herself emotionally to understand the lives of the people she encounters in places of conflict.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Lynsey Addario is a remarkable photojournalist, documenting the horror of conflict and the tragedy of humanitarian crises. Her stories get under your skin and wriggle into your heart. Addario dares to tell the truths others can't or won't but, she knows, the world needs to see. Candide McDonald gets an amazing insight.

© Lynsey Addario. U.S. troops with the 173rd Airborne, Battle Company, carry the body of Staff Sgt. Larry Rougle after he was killed in an ambush during Operation Rock Avalanche in the Korengal Valley, October 2007.

In 2009, Lynsey Addario won The MacArthur Fellowship, or "Genius Grant", a five-year grant to individuals who show exceptional creativity in their work and the prospect for still more in the future. That same year, she was part of The New York Times team that won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting for her photographs in the article, Talibanistan, published in The New York Times Magazine. In 2015, American Photo magazine named her one of the five most influential photographers of the past 25 years and noted that, "Addario changed the way we saw the world's conflicts". She has also won the Excellence in International Reporting Award from the International Center for Journalists in Washington, DC, a Gaudium award from The Breukelein Institute in New York, and the El Mundo Journalism Award in Barcelona, Spain. In 2016, she was part of The New York Times team nominated for an Emmy Award for her collaboration in The Displaced, a series documenting the lives of three refugee children, for The New York Times Magazine.

Addario has had two books published. Ironically her first, It's What I Do: A Photographer's Life of Love and War, is a memoir only, illustrated by her photographs. It's a story about being a conflict photojournalist and everything that entails, including the question, why, which Addario admits she has been asked relentlessly; the unfathomable horrors of war, which she details in vividly pictorial language; the job's personal difficulties, which are complex and unsolvable; and the frustrations, which include the struggle between censorship and the truth. Addario's writing is exactly like her photographs - raw, honest, uncensored, and emotive. Addario's second book, is a curated collection of 200 powerfully dramatic photographs, through which Addario documents life in Afghanistan under the Taliban, the stark truth of sub-Saharan Africa, and the daily reality of women in the Middle East. It is punctuated with revealing essays by hand-picked writers, and her own personal letters to a friend.

Not every photographer can, or would even want to, do the work that has made Addario famous. But with that work and that fame comes wisdom. That wisdom understands that the world keeps making stories which must be told.

© Lynsey Addario. Noor Nisa (20) waits with her mother by the side of the road after her waters had broken, and their car broke down. Her husband searches for transport to complete the four-hour journey to hospital.

That question, why?

Addario didn't study to become a photographer or a photojournalist. She studied international relations and Italian, and when she graduated from university, she moved to Argentina to learn Spanish. There she began to become aware of pictures in the newspapers and how you can tell stories with photographs. "It wasn't solely an art," she realised. "It was a way to communicate and share ideas. I became more and more curious about photojournalism and began looking at, for example, Sebastião Salgado's Workers and Migrations series." Her passion ignited, Addario, went into the local newspaper and "basically pestered them until they had to give me some sort of job".

Addario stayed about a year before she moved back to New York, where she says her knowledge was enriched by the really great mentors and editors at Associated Press who hired her as a freelancer. She still regularly works for The New York Times, National Geographic, and Time magazine.

Why does she work in conflict zones and other places where horror exists? "Everyone assumes that conflict photographers are adrenalin junkies, but I got into conflict, really by accident." Addario had moved to India in 2000 to continue her exploration of life overseas and of different cultures. She had heard about the situation for women living under the Taliban in Afghanistan. Her roommate encouraged her to document it. "You're a woman. You'll have access to these women. You should go there," her friend noted. So Addario did.

While there wasn't active fighting, war had already been rife for twenty years. It was Addario's first experience of a place, and of lives, that conflict had torn apart. Then, September 11 happened. She had never covered war before, but "I'd had this experience in Afghanistan, so it seemed natural to go back to this place I was quite familiar with," she says. Addario therefore covered the fall of the Taliban in Kandahar in December 2001. She returned to a new base, Mexico, where she covered events in Latin America. When it became clear that America was gearing up for war with Iraq her plans changed. "I just felt like I wanted to be there. It was a very important opportunity for someone of my generation. It was clear that my country was going to be engaged in wars in two different countries and I wanted to document that. So Addario's primary life work - documenting conflict, "was more my want to bear witness, to be there and cover the wars that my own country was engaged in," coupled with experience she had gathered covering crises in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

© Lynsey Addario. A man walks through a forest in Rethung Gonpa village outside of Trashigang,
in east Bhutan, August 2007.

The question, how?

"There is no shortcut. I get e-mails from young people around the world who say, 'Hi, I just graduated from college. I want to work for National Geographic. How do I do it?' It makes me laugh because it took me fifteen years of hustling non-stop to start working for National Geographic and The New York Times. You really have to work hard, work for smaller publications, or get out there start telling stories - photograph - actively start documenting things that you're interested in, or issues that you care about," Addario advises.

If you're interested in covering life overseas, then go, she adds. "Don't wait for someone to send you. It's really about being proactive, being well-read, doing your homework, researching, reaching out to people, reaching out to editors. I used to spend hours at Barnes & Noble in the '90s trying to figure out which magazines I wanted to pitch which story to. That's also important - know your market, know what publications are out there for the kinds of stories you want to tell."

Rewards of the job?

This question makes the exceptionally articulate Addario lost for words for a moment. Her first response is, "Wow!" Apparently, being rewarded is something she rarely ponders. Eventually, she continues, "I guess the rewards are the feedback I get when people express that I've taught them something they didn't know or shown them a different side of a story." She adds that she has received thanks from soldiers, with whom she has been in combat, for being there and telling their story, and from the parents of troops who have been killed for providing them with what exactly happened - which they otherwise would not have known. "Of course, the ultimate is when you can actually affect policy and enlighten policymakers as to what's going on, on the ground. Often, when I'm working on a story, I don't have an exact cause and effect. I don't know if it's my photographs exactly that are making a difference. I can only hope that. There have been stories, like my work on maternal health and maternal mortality, that clearly have. I've had feedback, for example, that the pharmaceutical company, Merck, started "Merck for Mothers", in part, based on a body of work I did on a woman who died in childbirth in Sierra Leone. Those small things are incredibly gratifying, but sometimes there is no reward. I just have to believe in myself."

© Lynsey Addario. Two women walk through a sandstorm in Bahai, Chad,
along the border with Darfur, Sudan, August, 2004.

Secrets of success

"There are no secrets. I worked my arse off. I'm never complacent. I'm always hungry. I'm always a little paranoid that I'm never going to work again. Always looking for another story. I work really, really hard." And she loves the work, Addario stresses.

She is also aware that people change over time and a role that was a perfect fit once, may not be a perfect now. "I think it's important for me to be aware of the changes in my own interests and to be flexible around that. So if suddenly, I'm more interested in working in a certain region or in America, I listen to that, because it's not a job where you can fake it. We throw ourselves 100% into stories and it's important to care about them.

"Photojournalism is not just about making powerful pictures or pretty pictures," she continues. "It's really about being a responsible journalist and being ethical going into a situation and ensuring that my own reporting is accurate, that my sources are OK, that I have a great translator who will translate accurately, then photographing and making sure captions are correct, because we have a responsibility to provide information and a record to the public. That should be accurate."

A photojournalist has to be honest, she stresses. Has to have integrity, be open to people, be non-judgemental, work hard, be tenacious. "It's not an easy job. It's a very lonely job. I've spent the better part of twenty-three years in hotel rooms alone. While it's glamorous and while it's a great honour to travel around the world, it's also tough."

© Lynsey Addario. Blood continues to leak from Mamma Sesay (18) shortly after she delivered the second of twins, as her sister, Amenata, helps clean her body at the Magburaka Government Hospital, in Sierra Leone, 2010.
At 14, she was forced to marry a man of about 50, and delivered her first child at 15.
Mamma said repeatedly 'I am going to die' as she lay on the delivery table.

The responsibilities of photojournalism

There has always been a fundamental need for journalism in society - to document what's happening and to provide a record, Addario notes. But she believes that this Donald Trump era has put an added burden of responsibility on journalism. Other authoritarian leaders have taken his lead, using his catchcry, "fake news", to belittle information they don't want public, she adds. "It's a very dangerous time. Journalists are being threatened. One news room in the U.S. was gunned down. We need to hold people accountable. We need to provide the truth, but we also need to be responsible journalists because there's really a lot of attention on the role we are playing and the job we are doing, so we have to be extra careful to make sure that we're accurate."

Women in photojournalism

Being a female photojournalist isn't easy. Addario knows first-hand that it's still seen as a 'man's job'. "Ideally, a woman's role should equal to that of a man. It shouldn't even be a question any more. Unfortunately, it still is a question," Addario remarks. "I see a lot of women photojournalists in the U.S., for example, but in war zones I don't see that many actively working. I still see white men as the predominant visual voice. And I do think that's a problem, because women, people of colour, and locals need to be telling their own stories." There are some stories that are very sensitive, she adds, and it's culturally insensitive to send a man. "But I still see photo editors sending men on rape stories in the Muslim world, for example. That seems grossly insensitive to me, knowing the culture. Editors have to send more women, send more people of colour, and also provide that window for them to enter the playing field."

© Lynsey Addario. Sudanese People's Liberation Army soldiers walk past a skeleton left from an attack on civilians in the district of Farawiya, in northwest Darfur, August, 2004.

A first at last: Addario's photobook

It has taken Addario more than twenty years to publish her first photobook. Astonishingly, she always felt as though she wasn't yet good enough. She didn't feel ready. Didn't feel her work was ready. "I think one of the great things about photography is that it doesn't get dated, so I could let it sit and see what bodies of work rose to the top, which bodies of work really resonated with me over time. That's not something that's immediate. I remember, for example, for two years during the war in Iraq, I was shooting and filing that day, and never really looked back at all the out-takes because I didn't have time. I wasn't even sleeping, I was pretty much just on assignment all the time for The New York Times and Time [magazine]."

After the memoir, she recounts, people started asking her why she hadn't done a photobook. "The memoir was what I wanted to do at the time. It was after Libya and I felt I needed to process a lot of the things I'd seen and been through." The questions made her feel that it was time. "And then it was all very overwhelming. I'm the worst editor of my own work. I hate looking back at my pictures. I'm never happy with them. I'm always tortured. So, I was given the name of book designer and editor, Stuart Smith, in London and I went in to see him. He was familiar with my work and I dumped about a hundred thousand pictures - twenty-three years of photographs - on him." That was about two years ago. The pair went back and forth from then, without a concrete timeline. "But when my memoir sold to Warner Bros. to option the rights to become a film, we felt it would be nice to have a photobook to coincide with that if it ever comes out, because most people will want to see that. Then, Ann Godoff, editor of my memoir at Penguin Random House in New York wanted to publish the photobook. She stood behind me and told me that she could do it." With that burst of wind beneath her wings, Of Love and War, was made. "I feel very lucky," she says. "It's expensive to do a photobook, and it's not easy, but I had a fair amount of time to work on it without the pressure."

© Lynsey Addario. Abdul Munim Ali Hamood wraps the body of his only son in the Al Karama morgue
after he was killed in a car bomb attack in Baghdad, Iraq, June 2004.

That time allowed her to make it a bit unique, from an idea dreamed up by Addario and her long-time friend, Suzy Hansen, who also helped her edit the memoir. "I actually went back and included some of my old letters, handwritten to an old friend of mine, Vineta Plume, and also to my mother, when I was first becoming a photographer and discovering photography." Plume had saved every letter that Addario had ever written to her. "They're very intimate - very raw and very personal letters from the middle of the war in Iraq. A little nerve-wracking to put into a book, but I think it's important. The photographs are the process of becoming a photographer, so hopefully these letters will shed some light on that." Addario also invited some journalists she had worked with over the years to write small passages - whatever they wanted to say. "These include Dexter Filkins who writes for The New Yorker, Lydia Polgreen who heads up the Huff Post, Christie Turlington who does extraordinary work fighting for maternal health, Aryn Baker from Time magazine and John Clinard, a soldier with whom I was embedded in the Korengal Valley in Afghanistan - I do an interview with him."

Thousands of photographs. Thousands of stories. Harrowing, enlightening, policy-changing, attitude-changing, and, above all, honest, records of life that people need to see. This is what Addario has given the world. Hopefully, that work will inspire others to dare to follow in her footsteps. Addario hopes that many of those will be women and locals. She has a passion for the truth.

Contact

© Lynsey Addario. Men stand outside the governor's house hours after the fall of the Taliban,
in Kandahar, December, 2001.

Get more stories like this delivered
free to your inbox. Sign up here.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Lynsey Addario: In the firing line - Capture magazine

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In 2009, Lynsey Addario won The MacArthur Fellowship, or "Genius Grant", a five-year grant to individuals who show exceptional creativity in their work and the prospect for still more in the future. That same year, she was part of The New York Times team that won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting for her photographs in the article, Talibanistan, published in The New York Times Magazine.

# data[].attributes.body
Starko notes that "creative people must be willing to take risks" and be willing to be unsuccessful sometimes in order to become successful (p. 112). In Uncommon Genius: How Great Ideas are Born, Denise Shekerjian notes that "risk makes people nervous [but] creative work requires an element of risk-taking...of having to go beyond the sure footing of experience and expertise" (p. 16). For Addario, she faces two types of risk: the risk of being in-over-her-head professionally as she starts out trying to convince people to hire her when she has little experience, and the risk to her safety as she works to document dangerous situations around the world.

As a woman working in areas of the world where women's rights are restricted, and working within war zones, Addario constantly takes risks while on assignment in order to document the events that are happening and show the truth through photography. While on assignment for the New York Times in Libya, Addario and her fellow journalists were kidnapped and as a woman, Addario's situation differed from that of her male colleagues. She documents her experiences in her book, It's What I Do: A Photographer's Life of Love and War, and in this podcast and article from NPR.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
In March 2011, photojournalist Lynsey Addario was kidnapped in Libya while covering the fighting between dictator Moammar Gadhafi's troops and rebel forces. She was with Anthony Shadid, Tyler Hicks and Stephen Farrell in the town of Ajdabiya, all on assignment for The New York Times.

Looking back, Addario says she had a premonition that something bad would happen.

"I just was scared that day; I can't really describe it," Addario tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross. "I just, I was kind of paralyzed by my own fear, and the fighting was coming closer and closer, and we all knew that - we had a feeling that the city would fall, that Ajdabiya was going to fall that day."

That day, Addario and her colleagues were driving in the same car, and they couldn't agree on how long it would be safe to stay out working.

"It was clear that we had different opinions," Addario says. "In those moments, I'm very aware of my gender, and I'm sure my colleagues were not. I'm sure the last thing they were thinking of is, 'Oh, we've got a girl in the car,' but I always was, because it's such a man's world that I work in. And so I didn't - I was ready to leave, and I didn't want to say anything."

Hicks and Shadid wanted to keep going, so they all kept working. It turned out they had stayed too long - their car was ransacked, and they were tied up and carried off by pro-Gadhafi forces, who handed them over to the Libyan government. She and her colleagues were held for about a week before they were released.

Addario writes about her experiences in Libya in her new memoir, It's What I Do: A Photographer's Life of Love and War. She also gives insight into her work as a conflict photographer in other places, including Afghanistan, Iraq and Congo - and into its impact on her personal life.

"I really felt like every moment we survived Libya was a gift," she says.

Interview Highlights
On her fear of being raped while being held in Libya
I had spent years covering war, and I had spent years meeting with women who had been raped as a weapon of war, and so for me it was always in the back of my head. ...

I thought of it in the moment that I was tied up and literally being carried off alone by two men - one man who had my ankles and one man who had the top of my body. And I ... and I had no idea where they were taking me. So for me, it was, "OK, now they're carrying me off to rape me." And I didn't know what was going to happen - and so the entire time we were hostage that was a major fear for me.
On what she said to the men who sexually assaulted her
For a journalist who covers the Muslim world, we have responsibilities to be familiar with that culture and to know how to respond to that. So, for example, I know that men put their sisters and their mothers on a pedestal - Muslim men - and it's important for me to say, "Look, don't you have a sister? Don't you understand I'm like your sister? Don't touch me."

In Libya, for example, when I was being groped repeatedly and there was one moment when ... we all four [Addario, Shadid, Farrell and Hicks] were thrown into the back of a tank and we each had soldiers sort of spooning us - and Steve Farrell was having a rifle sort of shoved between his legs, and Tyler and Anthony were both getting beaten, and I was being groped over and over, and this man kept putting his hands over my mouth and touching me.

And I said to him - instead of screaming - I said to him, "I have a husband. I belong to someone else; you are not my husband. Please don't touch me." And I think it's important to tap into that and to explain, "Look, I'm familiar with Islam, I understand women should not be with two men at once - and I belong to someone else."
On how much she values her work and cameras even when her life is at risk

"We were each begging for our lives because they were deciding whether to execute us, and they had guns to our heads. And I remember thinking, 'What am I doing here?' Like, 'How much do I really care about Libya?' And then I thought, 'Will I ever get my cameras back?' I mean, which is the most ridiculous thought, of course, when you're about to die.

It kind of seems like the last thing I have. It seems like, yeah, of course - I always think my work is important or I wouldn't risk my life for it. But I also feel like in those moments, if nothing else, my work will stand, and even if I am no longer here, here's this body of work I've created. And I hope that that endures. And so that was something that was important to me.

I remember the moment in which we were taken hostage in Libya, and we were asked to lie face down on the ground, and they started putting our arms behind our backs and started tying us up. And we were each begging for our lives because they were deciding whether to execute us, and they had guns to our heads.

And I remember thinking, "What am I doing here?" Like, "How much do I really care about Libya?"

And then I thought, "Will I ever get my cameras back?" I mean, which is the most ridiculous thought, of course, when you're about to die. Who cares if I get my cameras back? But, you know, for me, that was how my brain worked.
On calling The New York Times while being held by the Libyan government
Anthony, very intelligently, took the remote control - as they were not paying attention, they were all facing us ... and he changed the TV - that was showing, like, Libyan propaganda and Gadhafi - and he put on CNN. And at that exact moment our photos were on CNN, and it said, "the Libyan government cannot ascertain the whereabouts of these four journalists." And literally we're sitting with the Libyan government!

And I started crying and I was inconsolable. And I said, you know, "Don't you have families? How can you do this to us? Just let us call our families and at least say we're alive." ...

So then, like, 12 hours later it was the middle of the night, and they woke us up and said "OK, you each get one phone call." And I literally woke up and thought, "God, I can't remember my husband's number to save my life." ... I remembered my mother's number, but I thought there's no way she's going to find her phone in her purse, and I'm going to waste my one phone call and she's not going to pick up ... and so all the men remembered their wives' numbers and they turned to me and were like, "OK, you call The New York Times."
On how her experience in Libya changed how she covers war
Well, there was never a question in my mind as to whether I would give it up. I didn't think I would stop going ... I just thought I had to figure out how to modify how I would cover war. Because I didn't want - first of all, I've now been kidnapped twice [she was first kidnapped in Fallujah, Iraq, in 2004] and I think once you get to the point where you've been kidnapped three times, one almost looks irresponsible. And I didn't want to put my family through that - obviously, I now have a son.

So I, I wanted to continue doing my work, but I had to figure out how. And so what I have basically come up with is that I still go to Afghanistan and Iraq and South Sudan and many of these places that are rife with war, but I don't go directly to the front line. I try to stay back; I try and cover civilians; I try and cover refugees. So I'm trying to cover the issues and humanitarian crises but without putting myself directly in the line of fire. Obviously, with ISIS, that becomes more difficult because there is no distinct front line.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Twice Kidnapped, Photographer Returns To War Zone: 'It's What I Do'

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In March 2011, photojournalist Lynsey Addario was kidnapped in Libya while covering the fighting between dictator Moammar Gadhafi's troops and rebel forces. She was with Anthony Shadid, Tyler Hicks and Stephen Farrell in the town of Ajdabiya, all on assignment for The New York Times.

# data[].attributes.body
Originality is an essential element in creativity, to "express ideas that are off the beaten path" (Starko, p. 112) and "tackle the same set of problems...using different approaches" (Shekerjian, p. 15). Addario's photographs depict the same places and conflicts as other photojournalists, but her unique perspective, experiences, empathy, and relationships with the people imbue her photographs with new and original ideas. By documenting experiences from a new perspective, like showing victims of rape in a new light, showing the joy of a wedding ceremony in a Syrian refugee camp, the struggle of a woman in labor, or showing the everyday lives of female American soldiers living on bases, Addario creates original works that resonate with viewers and share new stories of the people and places they document.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Even after winning the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting and being named a MacArthur Fellow, photojournalist Lynsey Addario still gets nervous when she takes on a new assignment.

"Every story I do, I panic before I go. I wonder if I will be able to make strong pictures, if I will be able to capture the story, if I will be able to make the shot that will, at least, compel people to continue looking," Addario told NPR's Mary Louise Kelly in an interview for All Things Considered.

Addario has just released a new book, Of Love & War. It features over 200 of her photographs, focusing on women in conflict zones from her coverage of wars and humanitarian crises over the past two decades.

She told Kelly that she has learned a lot since she first started photographing.

"I wasn't as adept with the camera [then]. I didn't understand how to read light and to anticipate shots the way I do now. Now, I can prepare my cameras, get set up, make sure the right lens is on, so that if I have the opportunity to take a picture, I can grab it very quickly and put my camera away," she says.

She also now understands that taking powerful photographs requires knowing how to connect with people.

"[Photojournalism] is about reading human beings," she says.

Addario has shared her images with the world in publications like The New York Times, National Geographic and Time Magazine.

Here are excerpts from Addario's interview with Mary Louise Kelly, edited for length and clarity.
You capture women in incredibly candid, vulnerable moments. What's your etiquette for photographs like that? Do you always get permission before you raise your camera?
Always. Before I take any pictures, I introduce myself. I don't just walk in there like I have the right to take their picture. And a lot of women say no, and that's totally their right. A lot of women say, "I completely understand" and "Thank you for being a journalist" and "We hope this will help people."
You're making me think of a photograph you took of a woman named Ayak to show her belly, her pregnancy, without clothes. She was raped during war in South Sudan, and by the time you met her she was very pregnant as a result of that rape.
Yeah, before I even approached her with what I envisioned, I went to Kimberly who was the woman who had rescued [Ayak] and given her the safe house and said "Does this seem insensitive? How do you feel about this? Is this something that would be rude to ask?" She said, "No, absolutely not. Let's take this to her and see how she feels." And so we went and talked her through it, and before I even finished my sentence she had taken her dress off. She completely understood.

As a woman, I haven't been raped, but I have been assaulted in Libya. I was groped repeatedly, and I made a decision to talk about that very openly because I think as a survivor, it's important to try to strip away the stigma. Different women feel comfortable revealing different things about themselves.

With Ayak, it was something she wanted to do. She wanted to show what had happened to her - it was part of her therapy. I think it's very important for me as a photographer to not make those rules for people. Everyone has the right to decide how they want to portray themselves.
I want to let you tell me the story of Bibi Aisha. This is a woman you met in Afghanistan at the Kabul shelter run by Women for Afghan Women.
Bibi Aisha is the woman that was on the cover of Time that elicited this massive response from the public because she had her nose cut off by her husband. The story that she told me was that she was beaten repeatedly. She was married at a very young age, I think it was about 12 years old, to a member of the Taliban. He was incredibly conservative, and he beat her repeatedly and brutally over and over.

At one point, she left the house to get help and she ran away and ended up at an [American] military base. I don't know exactly who took her in, but she ended up getting returned back to her village, and to her husband.
It's an extraordinary photograph because she looks so calm and yet you feel this extraordinary violence perpetrated against her.
It was such a shame on her family that she had left the house without her husband's permission, even though she had left to seek shelter. He took her up to the mountains, and he was surrounded by a group of his fellow Taliban. They pinned her down and [her husband] sliced her nose off her face as punishment for shaming him.
How do you think about the line between journalists and the people they're photographing? You've got a picture of an 18-year-old in Afghanistan who is pregnant. She's gone into labor, her husband tried to get her to the hospital, and the car he borrowed broke down. You are there photographing her, and eventually you drove her to the hospital.
I don't want to sensationalize something like this, and I don't want to objectify her. But she was terrified. I mean you can feel the terror and the trauma. I think it's important to approach people in a really respectful way, so I tried to let her take the lead of how she felt comfortable [being photographed].

I made a decision: It's more important for me to try and save this woman's life, to try and get her to a hospital. I decided, "I'm not going to shoot anymore."

She was vomiting the whole way because she was in labor. We took them to the hospital, she delivered safely.

I never shot her again. And my feeling was that wasn't the point. I took those pictures of her on the mountain, which showed how desolate it was and that this is the situation for a pregnant woman in Afghanistan. And I didn't need to shoot more.
I love that along with the many really difficult situations that you're documenting through these photographs, you find so many moments of joy. There's one image of Syrian refugees from March 2014. The civil war is in full swing in Syria, and you've caught them dancing at a wedding, and there's just grace and laughter. You quote the father of the groom saying, "From sadness we want to create happiness."
I try to show the unexpected moments and to show that life does go on in a lot of these places where we assume it doesn't.

When I was shooting in Afghanistan under the Taliban, I remember there was a very bad drought in 2001. I was working in Herat in the west, and the governor of Herat at that time had given permission to photographers to photograph the camps for displaced people because he understood the importance of getting the international community to help.

So I was in this camp with [my] driver, and suddenly he said, "You know, Madam, someone is getting married in my family and I have to go early." And I said, "Well, can I just come with you?" And he said, "Sure." So we went to the wedding.

The streets in Afghanistan under the Taliban were silent because everyone was terrified all the time. There was no music allowed, no TV, nothing. All you heard were footsteps on the streets. We walked into this gated house, and we walked downstairs, and there were people unveiled, dancing around to the soundtrack of Titanic. I remember being completely floored, thinking, "Oh my God, this is illegal," and "I can't believe this is happening. And this is happening right here underground."
What I loved in this book is you also get great shots of American women. There's a photo of a Navy lieutenant in the Nurse Corps. She's stationed in Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
That was one of my first experiences [realizing] life does go on and people need a release.

Amy was a Navy nurse, so she was right there in the trauma hospital. After an intense night, I followed her back to the showers where the women go. I was like, "I want to just shoot what your life is like here," and she was completely fun and open and got it.

As a woman who's worked in a very male world, and in war zones for 20 years, I do everything I can to still try and feel like a woman, whether that means sneaking eyeliner on in the middle of Helmand or lipstick or perfume. I always carry perfume in my camera bag. It's psychological because I have to maintain some semblance of myself.
Rachel D. Cohen is an intern on NPR's Science Desk. Kat Lonsdorf and Justine Kenin produced and edited this conversation for broadcast.
And that was the fun of photographing women in the military because it was the first time that I actually had women to hang out with. For so many years, it was just me, or me and my colleague [reporter] Elizabeth Rubin, or me and whoever - the only two women for miles.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Powerful Photos Of Love And War By Lynsey Addario

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Even after winning the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting and being named a MacArthur Fellow, photojournalist Lynsey Addario still gets nervous when she takes on a new assignment. "Every story I do, I panic before I go.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
, a book of photography by Lynsey Addario. To Order please visit: Penguin Press

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist and New York Times bestselling author, a stunning and personally curated selection of her work across the Middle East, South Asia, and Africa.

Lynsey Addario has captured audiences with her disarming and compelling photographs and her uncanny ability to personalize even the most remote corners of our world. Here, the Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist returns with a stunning collection of more than two hundred of her photographs from across the Middle East, South Asia, and Africa. In her distinctively powerful dramatic style, Addario documents life in Afghanistan under the Taliban, the stark truth of sub-Saharan Africa, and the daily reality of women in the Middle East, as well as much more. Featuring revelatory essays from esteemed writers, such as Dexter Filkins, Suzy Hansen, and Lydia Polgreen, Of Love & War is an utterly compelling and singular statement about the world, and all its inescapable chaos and conflict, from one of the most brilliant and influential journalists working today in any medium.

Print Sales

All images are available in archival prints, in editions of 20 in the following sizes.

16" x 20"

24" x 30"

30" x 40"

Prices depend on edition and are furnished upon request.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Of Love & War, a book of photography by Lynsey Addario. To Order please visit: Penguin Press From the Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist and New York Times bestselling author, a stunning and personally curated selection of her work across the Middle East, South Asia, and Africa.