Lynsey Addario Quotes
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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.
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I'm a very open person, very self-deprecating. I accept my flaws.
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As a woman, I have tried to take advantage of the extra access I have in the Muslim world: with Muslim women, for example. Many people underestimate women in that part of the world because, typically, they don't work.
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I got rejected from journalism school!
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A lot of women act like it's the easiest decision, and I'm just going to have a baby and put my life on hold and not be worried about it. Well, I was worried.
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With photography, I always think that it's not good enough.
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Sometimes when I am photographing a major news event, I am suddenly overwhelmed by helplessness.
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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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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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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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In a place like Afghanistan where the society is completely segregated, women have access to women. Men cannot always photograph women and cannot get the access that I get.
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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 think it's important to have perspective and to look at what you don't necessarily want to see.
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I didn't want my gender to determine whether or not I could cover breaking news.
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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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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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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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In so many countries, Western journalists are viewed simply as dollar signs. We're ransom objects.
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Look, I would say that anyone who does this work and doesn't have a strain of idealism is an adrenaline junkie or completely narcissistic. There is no other justification. You're risking your life, and if anything happens, it's our families who suffer tremendously.
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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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I never went to school for photography and started when I was pretty young. I was somewhere around 12 or 13. I started photographing as a hobby and carried that hobby through high school and university.
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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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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.