Top 100 Lynsey Addario Quotes
#1. I wanted to continue doing my work, but I had to figure out how. And so what I have basically come up with is that I still go to Afghanistan and Iraq and South Sudan and many of these places that are rife with war, but I don't go directly to the front line.
Lynsey Addario
#2. With my subjects - the thousands of people I have photographed - I have shared the joy of survival, the courage to resist oppression, the anguish of loss, the resilience of the oppressed, the brutality of the worst of men and the tenderness of the best.
Lynsey Addario
#3. 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.
Lynsey Addario
#4. 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.
Lynsey Addario
#5. As a war correspondent and a mother, I've learned to live in two different realities ... but it's my choice. I choose to live in peace and witness war - to experience the worst in people but to remember the beauty.
Lynsey Addario
#6. I always knew my death would be a possible consequence of the work I do. But for me it was a price I was willing to pay because this is what I believed in.
Lynsey Addario
#7. 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.
Lynsey Addario
#8. 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.
Lynsey Addario
#9. 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.
Lynsey Addario
#10. 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.
Lynsey Addario
#11. 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.
Lynsey Addario
#12. I wanted the ideal personal life, but I also wanted to keep rushing off, and that doesn't work, not unless you've got an incredibly understanding partner.
Lynsey Addario
#13. Nothing seemed more important to me than to make the world aware of the senseless death and starvation in South Sudan. I wanted people to see through the eyes of the suffering so my photos might motivate the international community to act.
Lynsey Addario
#14. It's very hard to turn your back once you're aware of what's going on, and you're aware of the injustices, and you're aware of the civilian casualties. It's much easier if you have no idea and you've never seen it.
Lynsey Addario
#15. 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.
Lynsey Addario
#16. I hope that my work helps people - that's the thing that drives me and keeps me going.
Lynsey Addario
#17. I didn't know a single female photographer who covered conflict who even had a boyfriend, much less a husband or a baby.
Lynsey Addario
#18. He taught me to stand on a street corner or in a room for an hour - or two or three - waiting for that great epiphany of a moment, the wondrous combination of subject, light, and composition. And something else: the inexplicable magic that made the image dive right into your heart.
Lynsey Addario
#19. I've rarely seen portrayals of photojournalists that seem accurate.
Lynsey Addario
#20. Mortars and artillery don't discriminate against gender.
Lynsey Addario
#21. I'm not very religious at all - I was raised Catholic, but probably haven't gone to church since my Holy Communion when I was about 6 or 7.
Lynsey Addario
#22. I've always wanted to do a photo book, but I've never done one because I've never felt ready; I just didn't feel my work was good enough.
Lynsey Addario
#23. I'm not the kind of person to sit and dwell for ages on something that happened. I go through something, I experience it, I try to learn from it, and I move forward.
Lynsey Addario
#24. I wanted to make people think, to open their minds, to give them a full picture of what was happening in Iraq so they can decide whether they supported our presence there.
Lynsey Addario
#25. Stay in Latin America, learn photography, and make all your professional mistakes in Argentina," he said, "because if you make one mistake in New York, no one will give you a second chance.
Lynsey Addario
#26. The goal for me is to pull in the reader and to have them ask questions.
Lynsey Addario
#27. The fact is that trauma and risk taking hadn't become scarier over the years; it had become more normal.
Lynsey Addario
#28. Photography has shaped the way I look at the world; it has taught me to look beyond myself and capture the world outside.
Lynsey Addario
#29. I was assigned a Taliban "minder" who followed me everywhere. But he couldn't follow me into homes where there were women, so I took photos inside people's homes.
Lynsey Addario
#30. 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.
Lynsey Addario
#31. When I read about women living under the Taliban, I really wanted to travel there and see for myself: Is it that bad? What is the situation? I remember the night before I left for my trip, I called my mom and said, "I'm going to Afghanistan tomorrow."
Lynsey Addario
#32. Family is such a fundamental part of Islam, and women run the family. I had to force myself not to impose my own definition of political and social freedom on women in Islam, and approach each story objectively.
Lynsey Addario
#33. 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.
Lynsey Addario
#35. The first time I visited Afghanistan in May 2000, I was 26 years old, and the country was under Taliban rule. I went there to document Afghan women and landmine victims.
Lynsey Addario
#36. 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.
Lynsey Addario
#37. The possibility to mobilize the international community to act on human suffering is what drives me every day as a photojournalist.
Lynsey Addario
#38. 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.
Lynsey Addario
#39. 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.
Lynsey Addario
#40. 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.
Lynsey Addario
#41. If women are all of a sudden complaining all the time about getting sent to Pakistan, then if I were an editor, I probably wouldn't send a woman.
Lynsey Addario
#42. There are ways to minimize the risk if you are a woman working in the Middle East: You can dress modestly, wear the hijab, cover your head, always travel with a man.
Lynsey Addario
#43. Every story takes its toll on me and leaves an impression on me.
Lynsey Addario
#44. I think when I started going to war zones and started covering humanitarian issues, it became a calling because I realized I had a voice, and I can give people without a voice a voice ... and now it is something that sits inside of me every day.
Lynsey Addario
#45. 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.
Lynsey Addario
#46. My life isn't always at risk, even if I'm in a war zone. A lot of these places have areas of calm, so covering war doesn't necessarily mean being shot at all the time.
Lynsey Addario
#47. I try not to get caught up in how our society is so inundated with images, and stay very focused on the work that I'm doing.
Lynsey Addario
#48. I knew that my interest lied in international stories. I was interested in how women were living under the Taliban, for example.
Lynsey Addario
#49. If I took a month off, I was likely to be replaced by one of the other, say, two hundred freelancers vying to get my assignments. If I took six months off to have a baby, I believed I would be written off by my editors. I was in a man's profession.
Lynsey Addario
#50. By the time the United States went to war with Afghanistan in the fall of 2001, I had made three trips to the country. I covered the fall of the Taliban in Kandahar and have been returning routinely for the past 14 years.
Lynsey Addario
#51. I'm constantly struggling. You know, the stories that I feel like I could cover, do the work that I want to do and being a mother. That's really where my struggle is - and being a wife and having a life - and for me it's really hard to find that balance. I'm always struggling to find that balance.
Lynsey Addario
#52. 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.
Lynsey Addario
#53. Most people, when they meet me, one of the first things they say is, 'Why would you voluntarily subject yourself to war? Why would you go into these places where you know there's a risk of getting killed?'
Lynsey Addario
#54. People think photography is about photographing. To me, it's about relationships.
Lynsey Addario
#55. 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.
Lynsey Addario
#57. But I have faith, as I've always had, that if I work hard enough, care enough, and love enough in all areas of my life, I can create and enjoy a full life.
Lynsey Addario
#58. Becoming a mother hasn't necessarily changed how I shoot, but it certainly has made me more sensitive, and it certainly makes it much harder for me to photograph dying children.
Lynsey Addario
#59. I think there were times when I first started out, when I was covering Iraq - I was basically living there in 2003 and 2004 - that car bombs and attacks became so the norm that it was weird for me to leave and realize that no one else actually cared about what was going on there.
Lynsey Addario
#60. Before I gave birth to Lukas, I hadn't truly understood that painful, consuming, I-will-do-anything-to-save-this-human-being kind of love.
Lynsey Addario
#61. It seems like, yeah, of course - I always think my work is important, or I wouldn't risk my life for it.
Lynsey Addario
#62. I was undeterred by the danger of traveling as a single American woman through Taliban-governed land. I believed in the stories I wanted to tell, the stories I felt were underreported, and I was convinced that that belief would keep me alive.
Lynsey Addario
#63. I've worked for over 11 years in the Muslim world, and the one thing that I feel like I've learned - who's to say if it's true or not true, it's just my experience - is that men don't like to see really strong, aggressive women in that area of the world.
Lynsey Addario
#64. I generally don't follow domestic news that much aside from how it relates to the stories I'm covering abroad, like what Americans think of the War in Afghanistan.
Lynsey Addario
#65. Where in the world would I rather be than on the front line of history?
Lynsey Addario
#66. Sometimes when I am photographing a major news event, I am suddenly overwhelmed by helplessness.
Lynsey Addario
#67. Americans are really lovely people - friendly, kind and willing to help you out.
Lynsey Addario
#68. I grew up in Connecticut, going in and out of New York City, and I worked in the city in the '90s. I was freelancing for the Associated Press, and I fell in love with New York.
Lynsey Addario
#69. because in a sense, our work was our life. It defined who we were, it wasn't just a job we did for a living, and I needed to hold on to that for as long as I could.
Lynsey Addario
#70. To me, it's so much about doing your homework, going into a situation, getting to know the subject, making them feel comfortable, getting intimate access, getting access to all different aspects of people's lives so that I am essentially telling an entire story and not just a single image.
Lynsey Addario
#71. I come from a big family of hairdressers; they didn't read newspapers. I would say, 'I'm off to Afghanistan ... ' and they would say, 'Have fun!'
Lynsey Addario
#72. I had imposed unspeakable worry on my husband, Paul de Bendern, on more occasions than I could count.
Lynsey Addario
#73. 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.
Lynsey Addario
#74. In so many countries, Western journalists are viewed simply as dollar signs. We're ransom objects.
Lynsey Addario
#75. My job is to take the pictures, communicate a message, to bring those images to the greater public through whatever publication I'm working for. My job is really to be a messenger, and that's what I've been doing.
Lynsey Addario
#76. The Taliban rose to power in 1996, vowing stability and an end to the violence raging across the country between warring mujahedeen factions, and to implement rule by Sharia law, or strict Islamic rule.
Lynsey Addario
#77. 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.
Lynsey Addario
#78. I think it's important to have perspective and to look at what you don't necessarily want to see.
Lynsey Addario
#79. As a Western woman in the Middle East, I am often put in a different category. I am sort of like the third sex. I am not treated like a man. I am not treated like a woman. I am just treated like a journalist. That is usually really helpful.
Lynsey Addario
#81. Photography of any living being, according to Taliban rule, was illegal. So when I went to Afghanistan, immediately I was worried about photographing people. But it was what I wanted: to show what life was like under the Taliban, specifically for women.
Lynsey Addario
#82. I didn't want my gender to determine whether or not I could cover breaking news.
Lynsey Addario
#83. He spoke Spanish, English, Italian, and just enough of every other language to be able to charm women around the world.
Lynsey Addario
#84. As a photographer who is constantly in violent, bloody situations where the instinct is to turn away, I am always trying to figure out how to make people not turn away.
Lynsey Addario
#85. For a journalist who covers the Muslim world, we have responsibilities to be familiar with that culture and to know how to respond to that.
Lynsey Addario
#86. I think that more often than not, people underestimate me.
Lynsey Addario
#87. 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.
Lynsey Addario
#88. I became fascinated by the notion of dispelling stereotypes or misconceptions through photography, of presenting the counterintuitive.
Lynsey Addario
#89. When I'm documenting, for example, a story on women in Afghanistan, I will do a huge amount of research and a lot of time on the ground just getting to know the women before I even start shooting.
Lynsey Addario
#90. We had learned from the killing of a Reuters photographer on the balcony of the Palestine Hotel that a long lens could be mistaken for a rocket-propelled grenade.
Lynsey Addario
#91. I started freelancing for the Associated Press. I had a great mentor there who sort of taught me everything.
Lynsey Addario
#92. Don't expect things to happen fast. Be empathetic with the people you are photographing. Don't be concerned about money.
Lynsey Addario
#93. If I'm doing a story on how a single mother copes in a refugee camp, I'll go to her tent; I'll follow her when she's working, see what her daily life is like, and try to pack that into one composition, with nice light, in one frame.
Lynsey Addario
#94. I'm a very open person, very self-deprecating. I accept my flaws.
Lynsey Addario
#95. I interviewed dozens and dozens of African women who had endured more hardship and trauma than most Westerners even read about, and they ploughed on. I often openly cried during interviews, unable to process this violence and hatred towards women I was witnessing.
Lynsey Addario
#96. I just immediately connect everything to the wars I have been covering overseas, and that's not the case back home. I wrongly assumed all Americans at home were as consumed with our troops in Afghanistan as I was abroad.
Lynsey Addario
#98. The truth was, the difference between a studio photographer and a photojournalist was the same as the difference between a political cartoonist and an abstract painter; the only thing the two had in common was the blank page.
Lynsey Addario
#99. Trying to convey beauty in war was a technique to try to prevent the reader from looking away or turning the page in response to something horrible. I wanted them to linger, to ask questions.
Lynsey Addario
#100. 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.
Lynsey Addario
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