Lynsey Addario Book Report

Lynsey Addario's book It's what I do is such an inspiring story about love, war and photojournalism.  In my opinion, the most compelling moment of her story was in chapter 13 "I would advise you not to travel", Lynsey was in Somalia photographing the drought victims. She came into a room with a young boy dying of malnutrition, and as she photographed his last breaths she felt her own baby kicking inside the womb. "It was the most incongruous, most unfair juxtaposition of life and death I had felt since I began my journey as a photographer." pg. 257. It is so interesting, and beautiful, the way Lynsey grows as she goes from a freelance photographer with nothing to loose to a mother with everything to loose. In one final moment, she realized what "everyone had been talking about" when they say they could never love anything more, because for so long that thing she couldn't love more was her work. I have a hard time relating to Lynsey, we seem to be polar opposites. Perhaps it is because I don't have a love for photojournalism as Lynsey does. I admire her hard work and over one hundred percent dedication to her career, in which I hope to be with my career, which isn't photojournalism (sorry Rob!). Her techniques were quite interesting to me. While the images were compelling, the angle of the photos was ordinary and the quality was sometimes blurry. The real importance was the content of the photo. It doesn't matter that the photo of the soldiers receiving incoming mortar rounds is blurry. That is what was happening, so she shot it. It shows life in the war. Her portraits are amazing, she is always able to capture the pain in their eyes and the tole war, famine, or malnutrition has taken on them. The beautiful photo of the boy, Khalid was one of my favorites. Lynsey's work differs even from people she has worked and traveled with, such as Tim Hetherington. He took from different angles and photographed a lot more of the US troop side rather than civilian damage of war. My favorite is the photo of Khalid, the young boy who had been hit with shrapnel from a NATO bomb. It was a poster image of who is involved in the war. His innocent, blood spattered face with bandages on it just breaks my heart. The photo of Khalid is talked about in pages 189-193. "I picked up my camera to shoot what I had shot so many times before, then put it back down, stepping aside to let the other photographers have their turn. I couldn't do it that day." Lynsey was in Libya, in 2011, photographing a car that had been blown up by an air strike. There were human remains splattered everywhere. Even though she had experienced this trauma so many times before, she had been pushed to her limit. Throughout the whole book, I'm sure none of us even thought Lynsey had a limit. But everyone has a breaking point. Her's was soon after her son Lukas was born, which gave her more to think about and to worry about. Not only would I recommend this book to everyone, I would read it a thousand more times. It gives a neutral standpoint on the wars, unlike reading through the media. You get both sides of the story told in a beautiful way, with amazing images.