When I mentioned to photojournalist Lynsey Addario over the phone that I read her memoir, It’s What I Do: A Photographer’s Life of Love and War, and found it both stirring and terrifying, she let out a laugh and said, “Aren’t you glad you’re not my mother?” It’s a sobering question considering the life-and-death situations with which Addario is constantly confronted in her job as a war correspondent — she’s been kidnapped twice.
Selfishly, I am glad she chose the path she did, as Addario has documented some of the Middle East’s most pivotal moments of the past decade, from the fall of Saddam Hussein to the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan to the Libyan civil war. What she captures is far more than combat stills — she illuminates the humanity of the men, women, and children living in the battle zones trying to carry on semblances of “normal” existence — going to school, having babies, providing for family, etc. In doing so, Addario reveals that we have far more in common with people of differing cultures than we may have thought.
From her home in London — which she shares with her husband, journalist Paul de Bendern, and their 5-year-old son — Addario spoke about spending time in war zones, the sexism she experiences on the job, and the responsibility she feels to show the world the consequences of our foreign policies.