It's What I Do

Whenever I give a talk about Dickey Chapelle, I’m always asked why she did it. Why did she risk her life for so many years to cover conflict? I, too, wondered this same thing when I started writing about her, and in truth, I didn’t have a clue. 

I began to turn to accounts by other women photojournalists for insight, and I found a great deal in this book. Like Chapelle, Addario has an incredible capacity to connect with those she photographs. There is a palpable sense of empathy in her work—and one that is not easily come by. 

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It's What I Do: A Photographer's Life of Love and War is the memoir of Lynsey Addario, a photojournalist who is called to cover multiple wars in the Middle East and Africa. This book not only spans Addario’s professional journey to capture the utter devastation of life in the midst of war, but also her struggles to find a reasonable balance between her dangerous yet fulfilling career and the personal relationships in her life - something many women face! If you want an absorbing read and to be inspired, I cannot recommend this book enough.

Lynsey Addario, a MacArthur Genius Grant winner, has spent a career finding truth through the lens of her camera. After documenting the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the U.S., she braved danger to reveal both Taliban cruelties and the devastation caused by the chaotic war waged by the U.S. that followed. Addario's book. It's What I Do is more than just the inspirational personal story of a woman photojournalist, it provides witness to the horrors and injustice of war in hotspots like Iraq, Darfur, and the Congo. Her account of her kidnapping by pro-Qaddafi forces during the Libyan civil… show more.