From Afghanistan and Iraq, to Chad and the Congo, Pulitzer Prize winning photographer Lynsey Addario has traveled the world to document the impacts of war, and strife. She’s gone to some of the dangerous hotspots around the globe, and been kidnapped twice.
Her story is being turned into a feature film starring actress Jennifer Lawrence.
Addario, who’s speaking on the South Coast this weekend, says she’s on a mission to document what’s happening to get the world to take notice, and act.
Addario has been traveling the world as a photographer for more than two decades, working for AP, the New York Times, Time Magazine, and National Geographic. She spoke to KCLU News from London, on a break between assignments. She admits the question people ask her the most isn’t about what she’s seen, but why she does it.
Addario says it’s about bearing witness to the impacts of war, and civil strife. She admits that it’s hard to keep her composure seeing some of the things she’s seen in war zones, and in refugee camps. Addario says focusing on the job helps her document some of the difficult scenes she’s recorded.
She's been kidnapped while on the job twice, in Iraq, in 2004, and in Libya in 2011. Two of her drivers have been killed. She says it’s certainly made her much more cautious, but hasn’t stopped her from doing her job.
Addario believes that the images she, and others take have the ability to move people, and get people to stand up against what’s wrong. She wrote a book about some of her experiences, called “It’s What I Do: A Photographer’s Life of Love and War,” which is being adapted into a feature film.
Addario will speak at UC Santa Barbara’s Campbell Hall at 3 p.m. Saturday. Her book will be available at the UCSB Arts and Lectures event, and she’ll do a signing afterwards. Addario will also speak in Ventura County Friday night, in an 8 p.m. event at the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza.
