Lynsey Addario Quotes
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If publications want to publish images and stories from a certain person, they should put that person on assignment, cover his or her expenses, make sure they have access to security briefings and experts, someone to administer first aid, etc.
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I would never think of myself as a role model.
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My strength is looking for composition and light, and I think those things come in the quieter times of war or photographing people affected on the margins of war - civilians, refugees; that is where I really excel.
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I got rejected from journalism school!
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With photography, I always think that it's not good enough.
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I think it's important to have perspective and to look at what you don't necessarily want to see.
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I've seen so many photographers rush to do books the minute they start shooting, but one great thing about photography is that the images don't go away, so the more I sit with these images, the more I learn which ones have had the most impact.
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For me, taking photographs is such a tortured process. I'm always feeling like I'm not getting enough: I'm in the wrong place, the light isn't good, the subject's not comfortable.
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With each assignment, I weigh the looming possibility of being killed, and I chastise myself for allowing fear to hinder me. War photographers aren't supposed to get scared.
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Journalists dedicate their lives to covering war - they make many personal sacrifices, and it's not something that's gender-based. In a place like Libya where there's heavy fighting, it doesn't matter if you're a man or a woman.
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The more I photographed Muslim women, the more I was able to metaphorically strip away the burqas and hijabs, and start chipping away at the profound misconceptions that existed in other parts of the world about these women and their culture.
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When I first started out, I really felt like, 'I'm a journalist; I will be respected as a neutral observer.' And I don't feel like that holds true anymore. I don't think people respect journalists the same way they once did.
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I didn't want my gender to determine whether or not I could cover breaking news.
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You have to believe 100 percent in what you're doing, that some picture or some thing we do is going to change the world in some tiny, minute way.
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It was nice to be in my own country, where I didn't need a translator or a driver. Where I didn't need to figure out cultural references or what hijab I needed to wear to cover my hair.
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For me, it's more about being there, bearing witness to history, bearing witness to what's happening, what our country, the position our country is taking overseas. I want policy-makers to see the fruits of their decisions, basically, and to try and influence foreign policy.
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I was kidnapped by Sunni insurgents near Fallujah, in Iraq, ambushed by the Taliban in the Korengal Valley in Afghanistan, and injured in a car accident that killed my driver while covering the Taliban occupation of the Swat Valley in Pakistan.
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Obviously I am a photographer and I believe in my medium: I do think that powerful photographs can force change. It doesn't take long to look and be engaged in a strong image whereas, with a story, you have to actually sit down and pause and be involved in it.
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Since Sept. 11, many of the wars of our generation are in the Muslim world. So as a woman, I have access to 50 percent of the population that my male colleagues don't.
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The truth is, the difference between a studio photographer and a photojournalist is the same as the difference between a political cartoonist and an abstract painter; the only thing the two have in common is the blank page. The jobs entail different talents and different desires.
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The possibility to mobilize the international community to act on human suffering is what drives me every day as a photojournalist.
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I was lucky because I had parents who have enabled me to do whatever I was passionate about and never held my siblings and me back from anything. But I think a lot of people don't have that experience.
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In so many countries, Western journalists are viewed simply as dollar signs. We're ransom objects.
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If people really saw what was happening in Iraq and Afghanistan, then they might be marching in the streets to end wars. But you know, I think that no one ever sees because we're not allowed to see, and we're not allowed to publish what we do see. So it's quite difficult.