It's What I Do: A Photographer's Life of Love and War

by Lynsey Addario

I didn’t want to be the cowardly photographer or the terrified girl who prevented the men from doing their work.

money belt inside my jeans, until they reached my breasts. He stopped. And then he squeezed them,

like a child honking a rubber horn. “Please, God. I just don’t want to be raped.”

My mother filled in the gaps: Between clients, she came to all my high school softball games, rewarded me with admiration when I brought home A’s from school, and counseled me on my first love. My mother was infinitely resilient—a trait she learned

from her own mother, Nonnie, who’d raised five children on her own—and she tried to stay strong and positive about my father.

“Do what makes you happy, and you will be successful in life”—as if to discourage any ne...

I knew then that I wanted to tell people’s stories through photos; to do justice to their humanity,

I ate simit, sesame-covered loops of bread, for breakfast and lunch, because they were for sale on every street corner and I was too shy to ask for anything else in Turkish.

Editors didn’t think twice about putting me on assignment for a month or two at a time, at a rate of $400 per day, just to make sure I was available and in position as a story evolved. Those days are over.

the way she managed to remain feminine in a profession that cloaked femininity with androgyny. Early on in my career I always dressed like a man—jeans or army pants, sturdy hiking boots, a modest top. I rarely wore colors other than black, brown, or gray and tried to dress as sexless and boring as possible.

retaining a bit of femininity was crucial to her sense of self or maybe to a sense of normalcy. I hadn’t realized yet how important that illusion of normalcy would become.

people opened their doors to us. I wondered if they underestimated us because we were women in a part of the world dominated by men.

As I headed toward our car I paused. Had I gotten everything I needed? I ran back for some final images.

It didn’t occur to me to stay at the scene and continue photographing. An experienced conflict photographer would know to stay, to shoot the wreckage, injured, and dead, but I was young. This was my first bomb.

knew Paul was the cameraman who had been next to me when I fled. He had continued shooting, and died.

It seemed so obvious, but I didn’t know war meant death—that journalists might also get killed in the war. I hid behind the hospital, ashamed of my weakness, my tears, and my fear, wondering if I had the strength for this job, and wept inconsolably.

I couldn’t explain foreplay to a Muslim man when I was unmarried and allegedly a virgin.

But while my heart missed him, my passion had shifted to Baghdad. I

Only Uxval could manage to find and conquer a Mexican woman in Turkey in three months.)

I accepted my relationship with Uxval for what it was. I loved him, and I didn’t want to come home from long stretches away to an empty apartment. Though I knew he was dating other women while I was off for months at a time, I accepted his philandering as one of the compromises of the work and lifestyle I had chosen.

The Americans wanted to bring democracy to Iraq, but a convenient form of democracy that allowed them to censor the media.

We were allowed to cover only what the people with guns wanted us to see.

They zeroed in on me again, the woman. I

The reality was that most male war correspondents had wives or faithful girlfriends waiting at home for months on end, while most female war correspondents and photographers

remained hopelessly single, stringing along love affairs in the field and at home, ever in search of someone who wasn’t threatened by our commitment to our work or put off by the relentless travel schedule.

often based how conservatively I dressed, or how much I covered, on the level of danger.

“I am nervous, and it is better if they know they are making a woman nervous.” Khalid was back in

“Please tell the woman we will not hurt her.”

knew it might be interpreted as sexual, or improper, to lie down in front of strange men, so I sat there upright, envying Matthew’s sleep.

“I want to marry a foreign woman,” he said, looking me directly in the eye, smiling with tarnished, crooked teeth.

I was in touch with my feelings enough to process what they meant; I did not want my response to kidnapping to be escape.

“Madam?” he asked. “Yes, Seoul?” I answered, turning my eyes briefly to him and then engaging the horizon again. “Why no husband?” Seoul asked. I turned back to Seoul and smiled. “I am busy, Seoul. No time for husband.”

The reality was that I could offer little to a man other than passionate affairs and a few days a month between assignments.

He had been pushing and prodding me to get pregnant since the day we got married.

“You got your wish,” I said. “I can’t believe it happened so fast. I think my life is over.”

was not at all ready to give up my life, my body, my travels.

Was that really going to be me in nine months? That huge? And she was so happy. Wasn’t that woman conflicted about her career? How was I going to keep shooting? My thoughts shifted to my colleagues—mostly men. What was everyone going to think?

I tried to imagine my life as a mother—struggled to envision a female role model in conflict photography—and I couldn’t think of a single female war photographer who even had a stable relationship.

There were journalists who had taken time out to have children, like Elizabeth, who had a baby and managed to keep writing; photographers were different. What would the MacArthur Foundation say? They honor me with an incredible fellowship to foster my career as an international photojournalist, and I get pregnant.

With every sentence I felt a part of myself dying. My life was being taken over by a microscopic union of Paul and me growing inside my uterus, and I had yet to feel that overwhelming joy all these women talked about when they talked about pregnancy.

I convinced myself that if I didn’t tell anyone, I wouldn’t have to compromise my life. I was adamant that my editors and colleagues were not to know until I could no longer hide it—I feared editors would deny me work on account of my pregnancy.

and I didn’t want to start compromising my professional instincts before I had a baby.

still hadn’t told my colleagues I was pregnant.

make sure he felt comfortable with my decision. For the first time I actually felt that I needed his permission to risk my life, because I would also be risking the life of our baby.

I hoped my images, in bringing greater awareness of the desperation, might also bring food and medical aid.

“Listen, I want to be clear: I will give you work until the day you tell me you are ready to stop shooting, and I will start giving you work again after the baby is born, the day you tell me you are ready to go back to work. I am so happy for you. This is going to be great. Don’t worry about your career. It will be fine. I will personally give you as little or as much work as you want. I’m just really happy for you both.” I was shocked by his reaction. I assumed I would be looked at differently as soon as they heard I was pregnant.

made me think that perhaps the industry was changing a little. Was it possible I had finally proved myself

remained terrified that my editors would write me off with childbirth and stop hiring me because the assignments were perceived as too...

These were decisions I wanted to make for myself; I didn’t want to surrender those choices as a ...

In the Muslim world, women and children were often put on a safety pedestal—and pregnant woman were slightly higher up on that pedestal. Naturally,