Book Report

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


Lynsey Addario is known for her prominent work in Iraq and Afghanistan, initially documenting the life of women in Afghanistan before returning after 9/11 to cover the Desert Storm. During the intermittent period, she traveled to the Darfur region in South Sudan to bring attention to the genocide that was occurring there. On pages 192 through 196 of her book, It's What I Do: A Photographer's Life of Love and War, she documents the stories of Bibiane, Vumila, and Mapendo. Before their stories are recounted, a photo spread is displayed of the three women. Bibiane had tears running down her face, Vumila sat stolidly in a sparsely furnished room with fading walls and floor mottled from water damage, and Mapendo lies on her side looking up at the camera; it is later revealed that she is dying, and her demise is being accelerated by AIDs she contracted from gang rape. The stories that follow are startling to the reader; they demonstrate hatred and brutality and a primal level with incisive, candid language. All of the women had been raped by multiple men, their actions being a symptom of the ethnic conflict in their region. Ethnic cleansing commonly involved the rape of women from the other group in an attempt to dilute their gene pool. All three of these women had been raped and then either turned away by their families or left unable to find one. They were, as victims of crimes against humanity, ostracized and given a veritable death sentence. I have never seen a more candid and powerful piece of journalism that so effectively accomplished its goal of putting faces to an issue and humanizing those who are in need.
Addario's work is distinctive because of her choice of subject, her proximity to them, and her ability to capture the tone of any scene with a sense of totality. Her drive seems to be a blend of compassion and determination for the story that results in powerful photographs with clear motivation potential. Her photos of the soldiers in the Korengal Valley capture both the intensity of the event and the strength of the soldiers, and she managed to perfectly portray the desperation and scrapiness of the rebels in Darfur during their trek across the desert.
I have never respected an author or subject of a novel more than i respect Lynsey Addario, because her sense of responsibility to document history as it unfolds is astonishing. There are few more nobler pursuits than risking a life for the sake of posterity and information for the public. Many don't consider journalists when they think of the most valuable and altruistic members of society, and it is an insane injustice. I cannot say for certain that I share Addario's drive, but I do have a general premonition that I want to do good and affect change for the most important issues, and in that way I can relate to her.
Perhaps a less prevalent message of Addario's book is the one that is most powerful: every story is important to someone. So long as the subject of documentation is in need and the goal is to drive change, there is no story to small. This is the seed of my photostory, documentation of the homeless population in Albany. The most important lesson I have applied from her book is that activism based journalism is vitally important, and we can't count on others to do it for us.
This image of rebels in Darfur is a fantastic representation of Addario's work as a whole. This photo was taken as she trekked across the Sahara Desert illegally into South Sudan. She wrote of the Africans' resilience and fortitude, and her own struggle as she crossed the desert. Here she captures a raw image showing the emotion and experience written in the body language of these people, and I feel it is a powerful depiction of the rebels.