Week 5 Blog Forum

Topic: Lynsey Addario Book

At the end of chapters 6 and 7 I can say with certainty that Lynsey Addario has to be one of the most crazy people I have ever read about. Chapter 6 sees Addario get kidnapped in the Sunny Triangle. After the traumatic experience she realizes that what she does as a photographer impacts the ones she loves back home as well. This does not deter her though as she hops right back into the line of duty as a photographer. This commitment and dedication to her craft, the central theme of the book, is incredibly inspiring and the lengths in which she is willing to go to document these situations is a great read. The quote "I needed to branch out beyond the daily demands of breaking-news photography... "I wanted to see what else I could do, and for that I needed to try a different region. It was time to move on from Iraq and from the destructive love affairs of my youth." The reason I find this so interesting is because while she does move on from Iraq she goes immediately into covering another high tension region in Africa. For Addario, that was considered a less stressful situation and that is just completely insane to me that that is her idea of a breather. My favorite photo is in chapter seven, with the skeleton rotting with a low angle and Addario capturing the soldiers above it. The lesson that Addario continually teaches me is to be unafraid to be tenacious and willing to risk everything for the sake of good journalism.