Top Photographer Lynsey Addario Lives Her Photography Dream

Last updated on December 7th, 2012 at 12:25 am

I ‘ve created a list of characteristics and experience I think is an important part of being considered a top photographer:

• Have passion.
• Be tenacious.
• Create images that create, cause or move emotion.
• Have a story to tell
• Be known for something.

In one of my posts from last year, 8 Top Photographers In The World For Photography Dreamers, I put a spotlight on Lynsey Addario as one of the worlds best photographers.

Why?

For all of the characteristics and experience described above.

Watch this You-Tube video of some of her more recent photography work – and look for her passion, her stories, her tenacity. What emotions come up for you when you watch this video collection?

Lynsey has also been in the news lately. Earlier this year she was captured and held in Libya with a group of other journalists and photographers – assaulted and bullied – until everyone was released alive, 6 days later.

Once she returned to the US, she gave a series of interviews for the New York Times and CNN.

I’ve highlighted a few quotes and comments from those interviews –

The hardest part about what happened to us in Libya, our having been detained, is what we put our loved ones through – more than what happened to us. The whole time we were detained, I think our main concern was that our families didn’tÂknow we were alive. And we knew we would be hurting them. At times, it’s a very selfish profession. And it’s hard to put people through what we put them through.

If a woman wants to be a war photographer, she should. It’s important. Women offer a different perspective. We have access to women on a different level than men have, just as male photographers have a different relationship with the men they’re covering.

People think photography is about photographing. To me, it’s about relationships. And it’s about doing your homework and making people comfortable enough where they open their lives to you. People underestimate (me) because I’m always laughing and joking. That helps. They let their guard down.

I don’t think it’s more dangerous for a woman to do conflict photography. Both men and women face the same dangers.

In the last few years, people have treated me more as part of the gang. But I think that it is a chauvinistic profession. In every conflict I’ve covered, there’s always been sort of a boys’ club. I mean, it’s amazing in this day and age. There are probably a dozen women photographers – at most – whom I see actively in the field, covering conflict.

Most of my life, I had no personal life. I tried having relationships. But they were never successful because I was never home. That’s my fault. That was my decision. I would leave for an assignment and come back four months later. You can’t ask someone to be in a relationship with you if you’re not home.

I will cover another war. I’m sure I will. It’s what I do. It’s important to show people what’s happening. We have a unique access to what unfolds on the ground that helps our policymakers decide how to treat certain issues.

Lynsey is an incredible example of what it takes to live your dreams every day.

Until next photo,

Rem

Remys drema is to have a public showing of her photography.