It’s What I Do by Lynsey Addario: A Review and Analysis By Josh Cande

 

What Lynsey Addario’s “It’s What I Do” does to readers might be easier to describe in pictures rather than words. A work of historical note in the field of photojournalism, the book recounts Addario’s travels in Afghanistan, Iraq, and the middle east in capturing the lives of war-torn peoples on camera. It is not for the faint-of-heart, nor is it for the weak-stomached. The book is a gritty grounding of the desperations, fears, violence…and hopes of the citizens and soldiers at war. Addario’s task of providing to the world a photojournalistic accounting of these wars are like to fight, live within and do to the world is a life-changing experience to read, and the techniques and challenges faced by Addario will challenge both the mind and heart to change.


If one wanted to find the most compelling anecdote from the book, they might look to when Addario and her team of photographers was stopped in their car by the Taliban, forcing them into a fight-or-flight response. The vivid imagery Addario utilizes in describing her response within the car, calculating whether she should try and save her life by running to avoid bullets or risk capture, is something that I will likely never forget, nor any reader. I could almost feel the breathing of the Taliban with their guns as I read each sentence and I could imagine Addario's cortisol levels rising as she fretted for her life and tried to think of a way out of the situation. I couldn’t stop reading and found myself captivated with the author’s experiences as my eyes passed from word to word.


Addario's experiences, ranging from being kidnapped to taking photos of Taliban personnel, enlighten the reader with respect to the horrors of war. They show us the dangers that photojournalists immerse themselves within and the risks that they take to bring knowledge and light to the world. Specifically, her encounter with being abducted illustrated the nature of warfare and shows that photojournalists are sometimes as much at risk as the soldiers they accompany. The sheer variety of the photos shows how much time she spent in searching for the perfect set up and arranging herself around the environment. This dedication is what allows Lynsey to make contributions, and historical ones, to her field of photography and photojournalism.


Addario’s contributions are multilayered, primarily being that of producing a seminal, historical work regarding the experiences of soldiers in war as well as the camaraderie of photojournalists with military personnel on the battlefield. The harrowing experiences of watching soldiers not only die but of having to maintain equanimity in photographing their deaths is a tall task that puts Addario at the top of her profession. Her work breaks ground for succeeding generations of photojournalists to build upon in documenting the suffering, trials, and tribulations of those who serve. One might argue that Addario’s greatest contribution isn’t in any individual picture taken, but emerges from the sum of all pictures as the inspiration to pursue our dreams to make the world a better place, to take risk upon ourselves and bring light to what is happening in the lives of others, to endeavor to be the difference that others need. This is separate from her technical contributions in terms of lighting, composition, and subject matter. An analysis doing justice to Addario’s contributions to the technicalities of photography would itself be a book to be written.


Addario’s work most frequently seems to feature medium shots of social scenes, as evidenced by the photographs of Afghan women, American soldiers, and Pershmerga soldiers between pages 146 and 147. These photos put at their center the relevant persons in the respective social interaction taking place, such as the boy and his mother being illuminated by the light to show the hardships which families face amidst the specter of war. This photo is labeled “Afghan women shield their faces at the women’s hospital in Kabul, May 2000.” Addario uses the beds on either side of the central bed, as well as shadows to obscure the veiled figures. The angle is roughly even, attempting to allow the observer to empathize with the family, rather than look down on them or have an unflattering view. The angle attempts to capture them in the image as it would look to see them in person.


We also find close-up photos in Addario’s work, with the photo entitled “Anti-American demonstration in Peshawar, October 2001.” We see a young Afghan man positioned beneath the Taliban’s apparent flag while flanked by the American flag to the left. This image makes use of the blur effect. The viewer is immediately drawn to the subject’s eyes and the bright blue sky, contrasting the fear and terror which accompany war. The subject’s blurry and partly obscured face creates an element of mystery to the photo, leaving the viewer to wonder who they are amongst a crowd of individuals. The framing of the photo emphasizes the compact nature of Afghan urban life, while the young man’s face is framed by the power lines and flags. The power lines also serve as a makeshift or faux horizon line. The angle is one facing the sky, indicating the apparent optimism that the man might have in fighting for his home.


One of the primary techniques that Addario uses to separate her work from that of other photojournalists is capturing the gathering of individuals into symmetrical groups. That is to say that she uses the symmetry found in society and the organizations of peoples to create an emphasis on certain individuals, groups thereof, the social scene or event that is taking place. We also see Addario use color extremely well; it is important especially in the picture immediately following page 210, where the black and blues of the jackets that the citizens are wearing set them apart from the debris of the city and the wreckage of the bombing. The colors of people’s clothes are frequently used to contrast to the dirt and urban life of the middle east in Addario’s photos. They almost glow. The red and white of the sign stand out and are centered in the picture creating not only a kind of horizon, but also a reference point for framing and centering the image. The haze of the smoke adds an ominousness to the photo, as the viewer wonders how long ago the explosion occurred… and if another will soon follow. Angles are employed in her work as well, and continuously manipulating them is integral to the telling of the stories of war. Some pictures are taken from ground level to capture things from a perspective we don’t typically have in life while others are from the eye level of children, creating an impression of the war means to children growing up within the confines of war. That is Addario’s goal here, to create an ability to relate to the subjects of her photographs so strongly that people are inspired to create change in themselves and therefore the world.


Relating to the subjects of the photographs is essential to the efficacy of Addario’s work, but relating to the author herself is just as important. I personally relate the author's sense of duty in pursuing photojournalism in contact conflict zones for the common good. I find myself filled with a great pride for my community and country. I find that I am ingrained with a sense of duty to my community and in the people with whom I am surrounded. What the author brings to the community and to the wider photojournalism profession in pursuing her work in conflict zones is not just exposure, but inspiration. A photo of someone passing away on a battlefield may inspire feelings of revenge or injustice, selling easily and creating profit. A picture of an injured solider helping another injured soldier may inspire feelings of camaraderie and bring people to sign up for the service. A picture of the enemy, however, may inspire people to believe that cooperation, and therefore peace, is possible. It may inspire people to reconcile their differences with others as well and create synergy that would otherwise not exist. Lynsey’s work serves to not only bring attention to the travails of those who are in services, but to the immense length that photojournalists will go to bring to the public the world as it is so that it can be a better, more educated, and more progressive place. What Addario wants is for readers to draw from and build upon her work.


With respect to drawing from and building upon Addario’s work, I was able to incorporate several lessons from her experiences into my own photojournalism. The first was approaching a photo-taking opportunity with the initial goal of asking many questions to potential collaborators and communicating with the wider community about leads and ideas. By speaking to many people and brainstorming with colleagues, I was able to get pictures of various individuals and of different clubs, groups, organizations, and peoples for my work. This included my pictures of the peer empowerment club, as well as the volleyball team. Throughout the season, I followed the volleyball team including doing a report on their run to the conference championship title, and was able to celebrate their title trophy by writing articles along the way. I also sought to incorporate Addario’s photographic techniques into my work with the implementation of angles as well. I learned that the same picture taken from different heights creates the opportunity for teaching different lessons and telling different stories, all depending on our perception and what we favor. This brings us to a discussion of what I enjoyed most about Addario’s work.


Some of my favorite examples of Lynsey’s work are found after page 210, and include the all-red photograph of the persons sleeping in what appears to be a train station. I like this photo because it not only adds a unique twist to the coloring, but displays life during war and how people are brought together and forced to cooperate, communicate, and work in one another's interest. The lone green dot to the right of the photo serves as a contrast to the rest and adds a bit of hope to the photo’s seemingly dreadful tone. Another one of my favorite photos is just before page 211, displaying the migrants walking through the desert in groups. The bright vivid colors that stand out against the coffee brown of the desert ground bring light to what is nominally an arduous process. You can see the dedication in people's steps, as well as the frustration in their body language, evidenced by the woman standing arms akimbo in the bottom right of the image. I enjoy that this picture is framed by mountains in the background and that the subjects in the foreground are elevated upon another hill in the vast terrain. The photographer makes use of the entire frame and also of contrast, specifically, to create an attention-capturing image that is difficult to forget. The memorability of their collective struggle is rooted in our own participation in groups. The depth of field in this image specifically stands out because of the dispersal of persons throughout the entirety of the photo’s composition, from foreground to background. The photo that I enjoy from the website is the depiction of two women dressed in blue veils looking towards the horizon from a hilltop as the endless peaks and valleys of the middle east rule one's vision out to the horizon. Their veils only contrast slightly with the Azure blue of the sky. It is difficult to give words to such images, but it does not seem futile to try to translate Addario’s pictures into words. This brings us to use Lynsey’s own words to analyze her work.


On page 134 we find the following quote: “When I risked my life to ultimately be censored by someone sitting in a cushy office in New York, who was deciding on behalf of regular Americans what was too harsh for their eyes, depriving them of their right to see where their own children were fighting, I was furious. Every time I photographed a story like the injured soldiers coming out of Fallujah, I ended up in tears and emotionally fragile. Every time I returned home, I felt more strongly about the need to continue going back.”


This demonstrates not only Lynsey's dedication to pursuing what she perceives to be in the interest of the American people to know about their troops fighting overseas, but it shows that she is continuously in thought about her profession. It shows that Lynsey cares so deeply about her community and her professionalism that she seeks to ensure accurate reporting. This is one of the fundamental lessons of the book that sticks with the reader. A person who doesn't care about their profession isn't going to be remembered very much, and the memorability of the work would seem to prove her dedication. The willingness to put oneself through such experiences, evaluate the experiences, and then elect to continue to pursue such experiences yet again is the emotional burden that Addario takes upon herself in her quest to bring images to the American imagination, with respect to the wars in the middle east. One could argue that this quote is the embodiment of the book as a whole. This brings us to a second quote about Lynsey’s experiences in war reporting.


“I felt like a failure and sensed the limitations of my gender. Capturing civilian casualties of war was a fundamental angle of the story I hadn't yet been able to illustrate. A good photographic essay, and a truly lasting historical work of documentation, would have images of the entirety of what happened in the Korengal, from the American soldiers to the Afghan villagers. Afghans dying was an enormous part of that reality, and I was just failing to witness it. I knew that had I been stronger – had I not been a woman with physical limitations and with a partner who was almost six months pregnant - I might have opted to go with First or Second Platoon and attempted to scale the vertical terrain with my gear alongside my colleagues.”


This quote is found on page 177. Much of Addario's identity is centered upon being a woman and a lot of the prevailing narrative of the book is that she is in the company of male soldiers during a deadly tour of the middle east. That she had missed such a tremendous opportunity to capture the process of life and death in the context of a war almost seems ironic with respect to her having to declare herself to have been a failure. For all of the arduous traveling and emotional trauma that Addario has endured and been willing to take upon herself in the context of documenting war, it seems rather bizarre to declare herself to have been a failure. Such words don’t seem to reflect the impact of Lynsey Addario’s work. Still, another quote gives us an idea as to how Addario approaches her opportunity finding…and risk taking.


“As a photographer in a war zone, I didn't have a weapon. I needed to get as close as I could to the action in order to get the photographs, but I also needed to stay alive. And the only thing that kept me alive during Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Congo, and Darfur was my inner voice that told you when I had reached my personal limit of fear.”


This selection is found on page 185, and it is emblematic of not only Addario’s experience in the war, but of her approach to photography and life. There is some innate sense or feeling that she uses to measure what risks she is willing and not willing to take and it appears to serve her well. Her thirst for being at the top of her profession and enlightening the world with groundbreaking work is exemplified and embodied in this statement, because it not only displays the risk she is willing to assume, but the mental assessment that goes into deciding just how far to go. It describes the general mindset that is required to be a photojournalist in a war setting and it informs the reader about her thirst for adventure and willingness to endure extreme physiological responses in the midst of the job. This quote holistically encapsulates Addario's manner of operation in the course of her work. This work isn’t appealing to all and not everyone can stomach the challenge.


The ability to stomach the challenges of war may be what determines if this book is right for your reading purpose. If you are interested in warfare, then this is definitely a book you will have to read sometime in your life; if you are interested in the middle east or social work, then this is a book that you will have to read at some point in your life; if you are interested in photography or photojournalism then this is a book that you will have to read at some point in your life. However, we do not all experience the things that the persons depicted in these pictures do, nor do we all have the stomach for enduring what Lindsay has in the pursuit of an accurate depiction of the lives of those who are affected by war. The appeal, or lack thereof, of this book is grounded in its gritty reality; that it doesn't cut any corners or pull any punches in showing us the world as it is.