This article contains graphic images, and the conversation has been edited for length and clarity. You can listen to an extended version in the latest episode of The Mishal Husain Show podcast.
You’ve worked all over the world in difficult places, and yet the title of the film is Love+War. How does love come into it?
In the balance of my family. You have war, and then you come home to this nest of love, with my children, husband, sisters and parents.
Also, the thing about war is that you see these incredible scenes of love and generosity, kindness and selflessness — alongside brutality, of course. You get a sense of love that binds people in these horrific moments.
My job is to bear witness. I’m seeing daily life continue under these very difficult circumstances. Women continue to deliver babies. I see marriages, I see divorce. I see death and life. 1
1 Scenes that encapsulate this reality bookend Love+War, which begins with Addario documenting a 2022 missile strike that kills civilians in Ukraine and ends with a wedding ceremony that moves her to tears. As she spoke of babies, I was also reminded of the many places where she has captured women during pregnancy and childbirth, including Afghanistan, the Philippines and Sierra Leone.
Do you love the job? Is that also part of the love that’s in this?
I don’t think anyone could cover war without loving the job. It’s something I do from my heart and my soul. It’s something I do because I believe in it.
Going back in time, I wondered if we could talk about two turning points. The first of which is 9/11. You’re already working as a photographer, but is that the moment where you become a war photographer?
In 2000, I started becoming aware of women’s issues in Afghanistan, and as a young woman I was curious: What do Afghan women think?
I went to Afghanistan [at] 26 years old. I borrowed money from my sister and I started photographing what I could of women living under the Taliban. I ended up making three trips to Afghanistan before September 11.
When the US was gearing up for war in Afghanistan, it felt very natural for me to go, because I was already quite familiar with it. 2
2 Addario is speaking here of the Taliban’s first period in power, which ended with the US invasion of November 2001. Almost exactly 20 years later, Taliban rule was re-established as international forces withdrew in 2021, a reversal described in a Weekend Interview with former Afghan minister Nargis Nehan.
You’d had a hard time, hadn’t you, selling those pictures of Afghanistan?
I couldn’t give them away. Before September 11, very few journalists were actually working in Afghanistan. Photography of any living thing was illegal [under the Taliban]. It was difficult to get them published.
Note: This podcast contains descriptions of abduction, violence and sexual assault that some viewers may find distressing.
And that all changed suddenly with international interest in the country?
Absolutely. What became exciting for me [was] that I had this knowledge I had procured on my own and suddenly it was relevant on a world stage. The New York Times sent me on my first big assignment for them, covering Pakistan leading up to the fall of the Taliban. Then the New York Times Magazine put me on assignment to do the ‘Women of Jihad.’
Addario on assignment in Tiné, on the Sudanese border in Northeast Chad. Photograph: National Geographic/Caitlin Kelly
But that’s when you learn there are risks involved in your work, right? Covering a war.
Absolutely. At that time there were suicide bombers. There were smaller-scale attacks. The US started bombing Afghanistan. We had to navigate how to go in. When is it safe to move into a place that’s very hostile? It’s always a learning curve.
The other turning point was Iraq in 2004, because you had the first of your abduction experiences. Take me back to that time and place, the chaotic period after the US invasion.
I really wasn’t sure I could handle a military embed. I had never been in combat. I was offered a position with the 101st Airborne and I did not take it. 3
3 While correspondents and photographers — including women such as Lee Miller — have long accompanied armies in combat, the 2003 invasion of Iraq expanded and changed access. In contrast to the 1991 Gulf War, when reporters complained of tight restrictions, hundreds of journalists were embedded with coalition forces as they moved through Iraq in 2003.
Why did you think you couldn’t handle it?
Because I was a woman. I didn’t know if I’d be physically fit enough, if I’d be as strong as the men I was going in with. I didn’t know what it would feel like to be under fire.
Even though I covered the fall of the Taliban, it was not combat, and I really didn’t want to be responsible for holding anyone up. I just wasn’t sure how I would respond.
I ended up going into northern Iraq from Iran — many journalists did — covering the Kurdish territory. I was in a very close call that killed a journalist where I had been standing, named Paul Moran. We were covering refugees fleeing this area, something I’ve covered a million times now. All the locals were warning us to leave. An incoming round came in and landed so close that our entire car flew forward.
As we evacuated, a taxi driver pulled up and said, I have the body of a journalist in my trunk. Can someone help me identify him? I started sobbing and thinking, I don’t want to do this for a living, I don’t think I can stay here. But there was no way out. Saddam was still in power. Iran wouldn’t let us back in. I had to learn how to deal with my fear.
Maybe that’s a sliding doors moment. Had there been a way out, you might not have gone back to that kind of zone again. But one day, with other journalists, you got held up at a checkpoint near Fallujah?
I had spent all of 2003 and the beginning of 2004 in Iraq. I was working with a colleague. We heard there was a Marine helicopter down. The only road open was a smugglers’ route, and as we turned a corner, the entire road was full of insurgents — rockets on their back, kalashnikovs. It was terrifying.
They pulled all the men out of the car. I was dressed in full hijab — abaya, head scarf, everything. They left me sitting in the car and I was looking out the window, watching my colleague get led away. 4
4 Fallujah, west of Baghdad, was the scene of bitter battles between US forces and Iraqi insurgents in 2004, the year after then-President George W. Bush had declared the end of major combat operations in Iraq.
This is where you told them that colleague was your husband?
I thought [if] they take us as a couple, it’d be more complicated for them to kill us, or to figure out what to do when you insert a woman into that situation.
It’s a hell of a thing to do, Lynsey. I’m trying to imagine being in the same position. You’re in a more protected position, in the car, and you are connecting yourself to someone who’s being led away.
You would probably do the same thing. When you work in war zones, there is a solidarity. I didn’t think about it in terms of my own safety. I thought about it in terms of, How can I help this situation? 5
5 At this time, foreign journalists in Baghdad were living in fortress-like conditions, with media organizations taking over houses and teams living and working together. In her book, It’s What I Do, Addario identifies the colleague she was with that day only as “Matthew,” and says they had become a close photographer-writer duo.
I think it did in the end. They held us for a day. We had guns to our heads the entire day. They questioned us repeatedly. And they ended up letting us go.
You’ve also been on embeds with the US in Afghanistan. In your book, I think one gets a sense of the humanity of the soldiers as well as the civilians. You were embedded with one group for two months, and some were killed.
Correct. I was embedded with the 173rd Airborne in the Korengal Valley in 2007. That was, at the time, arguably the most dangerous place in Afghanistan. We intentionally asked to embed there, because we wanted to understand why there were so many civilian casualties in Afghanistan, given the incredible technology that the US military had.
We spent two months with them on daily patrols. We had to jump out of Black Hawks in the middle of the night into the heart of Taliban territory.
On these missions you learn what war is about. It was one of the few times, ironically, in 25 years of covering conflict, that I really felt like I was at the heart of war. You’re on the side of a mountain with a group of young American men who are told they’re fighting for democracy, and you see the cost. You really understand the complete disconnect between the Afghans, who didn’t want the Americans there, and the Americans, who thought they were helping the Afghans. Young American soldiers dying. Afghans dying. What was it for?
You don’t see those scenes unless you really invest the time.
Did you have those conversations? I’m wondering what the dynamic is like on an embed.
Not really. I had a lot of conversations with the soldiers, but at that time they were despondent because they had been there so long. It was so incredibly dangerous. We were shot at almost every day on every patrol. Everyone was really lonely. Their personal lives were falling apart. In terms of the greater political context, no, we never went there.
Do you think your presence represents something to them? Some semblance of the world outside?
Most of them thought we were completely crazy for being there voluntarily, without weapons. I think they were very grateful we were there — that the American public could see what they were going through. It’s a validation of what they’re doing.
One was planning to go home and propose to his girlfriend.
You end up photographing his body bag.
We were ambushed, and it was so chaotic. We heard man down, man down, man down.
I was making my way to the landing zone where the medevac was coming in to take out the wounded. I thought, Where’s Rougle? I knew his call sign and he hadn’t come out.
Then I saw the scout team emerging from the dust carrying a body bag. In that moment, I thought, I can’t believe he’s dead. This young man was so alive and talking about his future. Seeing him in a body bag was really, really devastating. 6
And the other soldiers are crying.
And then I was crying. Of course you think of his loved ones. They don’t even know yet.
6 In her book Addario writes that she and reporter Elizabeth Rubin had been searching for the “perfect embed” — one that would explain why so many Afghan civilians were being killed in this period. The ambush that she’s describing happened in October 2007. “I raised my camera in a gesture to ask permission to photograph,” she writes. “We had been with them for two months, and I knew it was important to document Rougle’s death.”
US troops carry the body of Staff Sergeant Larry Rougle, who was killed when Taliban insurgents ambushed their squad in the Korengal Valley in Afghanistan. Photograph by Lynsey Addario
Do you struggle with leaving that behind? You must need to compartmentalize. Or do you not think of it that way? Is the emotion part of what makes you a great photographer?
A combination. I definitely allow myself to feel. I have, I think, an extraordinary amount of empathy. I wish I wasn’t so emotional, but I think that it’s important. When I stop feeling, I really need to be worried.
But I also compartmentalize when I go home, because I have to be present for my personal life. I owe it to my children and my husband to not live in this very dark place of sadness and war all the time. I carry it with me. I make a point to not forget about things — but I definitely have to compartmentalize, so that I can be present.
You’re the youngest of four. Your older sisters have said that they deserve some credit, because they toughened you up.
[Laughs] Yeah, they were really tough on me. They beat me up, called me names. They were constantly slamming the door in my face and telling me I couldn’t join in. In a sense they did toughen me up.
We grew up in Connecticut [in] a very open, eccentric household. My parents are hairdressers. We had very few rules in our house growing up. We opened our doors to anyone and everyone. I think that made me who I am in terms of being able to walk into any situation, not be judgmental [and] really be able to accept people for who they are, and where they’re at.
When was the first time you picked up a camera?
My father gave me a camera when I was about 12 years old. I started taking pictures of inanimate objects because I was too shy to approach people. I would sit on the roof and photograph the moon. It was an awakening for me — sort of a different way of expressing.
It wasn’t until I graduated that I started photographing people and really started becoming aware of photojournalism as a way to tell stories. 7
7 Addario’s first photographic work was in Argentina in 1996. A photo editor for the English-language Buenos Aires Herald said he’d give her a job if she managed to capture Madonna on the set of the movie Evita, then being filmed in the city. Addario persuaded security guards to let her into the Casa Rosada, the presidential palace, and her shot of Madonna on its balcony made the front page.
But you hadn’t grown up with photojournalism, I think? Yours wasn’t a house that had newspapers, images of conflict around the world.
Absolutely not. The only conversation in our house was what hairdressers talk about. People talk to their hairdressers about their problems — they’re almost like psychiatrists.
It was not an intellectual family. We had no books in the house except for encyclopedias. If you don’t grow up in a family with newspapers — where you’re constantly privy to what’s happening in the world — why would I have known about photojournalism?
When you go out on assignment, do you think of capturing a particular kind of scene? Or are you going with the flow?
Being a photographer is not just about taking photos — there is so much that goes into it. As I’m gearing up for a trip, I spend an extraordinary amount of time doing research.
Are you looking for locations?
I’m looking for themes. I’m looking for contacts. I’m looking for the story of the moment, and how can I advance the story? What’s not being told? What’s happening to women?
Sometimes things are serendipitous — I’ll be driving, see this extraordinary scene, stop the car and that might be the photo for the day — but I always have an agenda. It’s not just about showing up somewhere and looking for pretty pictures.
There was a day early in the war in Ukraine, when you ended up seeing the immediate aftermath of a Russian strike on evacuated civilians.
It was March 6, 2022. I had been covering the full-scale invasion from the beginning.
At that point, the situation in Bucha and Irpin was a bit of a mystery. Everyone knew the Russians were there. They had encircled the area. A lot of civilians started fleeing to Kyiv, across the broken Irpin bridge. The bridge had been broken intentionally by the Ukrainian forces to stop the Russian advance.
It felt incredibly tense. We took cover near the bridge, photographing civilians leaving. It was a known civilian evacuation route, so when the first mortar round came in, I thought, Well, the Russians know [these are] civilians, so they won’t kill them. Putin had said repeatedly, We are not targeting civilians. My security advisor said, Would you like to leave? and I said, No, no, no, they’re not gonna target this; this is all women and children and elderly.
Another round came in a bit closer, so we dove for cover behind the wall. When we popped up — almost immediately — a third round hit the pavement. I thought a soldier had been knocked down, because they were calling for a medic. As I approached, I realized there were children — I noticed moon boots. I’m scanning the scene and shooting. There’s still rounds coming in, so I know I have to work quickly. My instinct is to leave, but I don’t want to, because I’ve just witnessed what I thought was a war crime.
So I work my way around the scene, and I see the faces. I’m thinking to myself, The New York Times will never publish civilians who have been killed, but I have to document this just for the sake of documentation. I am trying to do it in a respectful way — in a way that’s dignified. I don’t know if the family is dead or alive. Then we have to run, because rounds [are] still coming in. When I get back to the car, I called my editor and said, I’ve just witnessed this. I’ll send you photographs, if they’re in focus.
The New York Times did make a decision to run the photos on the front page. They were used on the House floor to prove that civilians were being targeted. 8
8 During this period, Russian forces had occupied areas around Kyiv in an apparent bid to encircle Ukraine’s capital. Evidence of war crimes committed in that period has been widely documented. Addario’s words here give an insight into the complexities of her work: Even when she has captured something important, she can’t be certain the quality is good enough to use — let alone how editors will view it against codes of ethics, taste and decency.
The front page of the New York Times on March 7, 2022, featuring Addario’s photo of civilians mortally wounded by a Russian mortar round. Source: The New York Times
Why was that so exceptional, to publish those pictures?
It is always a huge debate whether to publish the dead, especially when their faces are identifiable. In this case, it wasn’t very graphic. It looked as if everyone was sleeping — knocked over by the sheer impact of the blast. We had only been spared because the blast went in their direction and not our direction.
In Libya in 2011, you were held hostage by Gaddafi’s troops.
I was taken hostage with three other journalists for the New York Times — three men.
Over the course of that time, we were blindfolded, tied up, beaten up. As the only woman I was groped, repeatedly, by numerous men. The most terrifying thing about being in captivity is you have no idea what will come next. It’s really about getting through minute by minute. There was a moment in the very beginning where they tied me up and put me in a vehicle on the front line, and they were laughing at us. We were literally held on the front line while bullets and bombs were raining around us.
[Later] a soldier came over and sat next to me. I thought, very stupidly, that he was going to offer me water. Even in Iraq, when we were held hostage, they were quite kind to us. They weren’t beating us. Instead he pulled his fist back and just punched me square in the face. I’m tied up. I remember actually seeing stars like in the cartoons. I just put my head down and tears were rolling down my face. Then he just walked away.
One soldier had a gun to my face. He was caressing my cheek with his finger, saying, Tonight, we will kill you. It was just a constant barrage of fear and emotions. 9
9 Addario’s abduction in March 2011 was carried out by Libyan soldiers, as the Gaddafi regime faced an uprising that began in the east of the country. With Addario that day were Tyler Hicks, Stephen Farrell and Anthony Shadid. Shadid would die on assignment in Syria a year later.
I know you lost colleagues in Libya. I remember being there in May of 2011, filming a documentary away from the front line. In the hotel there was a note pinned to the wall, asking if anyone had information about the possessions of Tim Hetherington. He was another journalist killed in that period. It was such a tiny detail, but it made you think of the days when everything changes. 10
10 I asked this as I do have stark memories of that trip to Libya, even though I was in the area freed from Gaddafi. The atmosphere was unsettled, with great uncertainty about which side would prevail in the civil war and who you could trust.
Yeah. Tim and I were together [on] that embed in Afghanistan. He made an incredible film about it, Restrepo. We spent a lot of time sitting on the side of that mountain together talking. Tim was an incredible photographer. He was a very ‘thinking photographer,’ very sensitive.
On his way into Libya, he had been emailing me, asking for advice on what the front line was like, how to cover it, what he needed to bring. He came in while I was in captivity, so we never actually saw each other. About a month after we had been released, I got a message that he had been killed, along with Chris Hondros, another incredible photographer. Their deaths sent me into this tailspin that my own captivity had not. I think a lot of it had to do with survivor’s guilt: Why do some people live and some people don’t? Nothing really makes sense in those moments.
There’s no reason why we should be alive after Libya — anyone could have executed us on the front line. They had us face down in the dirt, guns to our head. Some commander came over and said, You can’t kill them, they’re American. Suddenly we were spared.
So you have to ask yourself why you survive and others don’t. It’s a really tough question. In the same vein, I ask myself why I am so driven to do this work — despite the cost, the emotional toll and the fallout on my loved ones. 11
11 To this day, there are families fighting for justice for journalists killed in this period. For instance, the body of South African photojournalist Anton Hammerl, who was killed by Gaddafi’s soldiers in April 2011, has never been recovered.
You’ve got young sons. In the film, we see you bathing the little one and he says, Do you have to go away like this, please, can you only go away for one day? You’re trying to explain to him that some of the places you go are really far away.
You do keep going back to these really tough places.
I do. And he keeps asking me those questions. [My sons] both ask me all the time, Why do you have to go? Is it dangerous? Is there fighting? I say it’s dangerous, but I know how to stay safe, and I don’t go to where it’s too dangerous.
Look, there’s unpredictability in war — you never know — but there’s also unpredictability in life. I believe in this work, and I believe this is where I need to be. I hope that my children can learn from that sort of dedication.
Mamma Sessay, 18, shortly after she delivered the second of her twins at the Magburaka Government Hospital in Sierra Leone in May 2010. Hemorrhaging postpartum, Mamma said repeatedly, “I am going to die,” as she lay on the delivery table. Photograph by Lynsey Addario
Would you have gone to Gaza, for example, if journalists had been allowed in?
For sure. Every journalist and war correspondent really struggles with the fact that no international media has been allowed in Gaza. For any of us who dedicate our lives to this work, the tools we have to deal with witnessing trauma and witnessing devastation is to go and do something — to at least be a platform for the people on the ground [and] provide a voice for them. To have those tools taken away is incredibly debilitating. 12
12 The Israeli authorities’ rationale for blocking independent media access has been that journalists’ presence would put their forces at risk, but the ban has continued since the ceasefire and return of hostages. Bloomberg’s Israel bureau chief told us in August of participating in a legal bid to overturn the ban, but the government was recently granted another extension by Israel’s Supreme Court.
Palestinian journalists have been documenting the war at great cost — some of them targeted by Israeli forces. Do you think that there’s been enough solidarity with them? This is the deadliest period documented for the last 30 years for journalists, and most of those dead have been Palestinian.
I hope so. I think we can only amplify their voices. We can point out the incredible work they’ve been doing. We can point out the fact that many journalists have been killed, and targeted, and hope that it’s not with impunity — that at some point there will be someone called to be responsible for this.
Palestinian journalists are dismissed as being part of Hamas, which is ridiculous. These are accredited journalists. These are people risking their lives to bring the world the truth.
Journalists Killed In Connection To Their Work
Source: Committee to Protect Journalists
You began your work in the age before social media. We live in a world where people scroll from one short-form video to another — that’s how many people consume news. What does that mean for your work?
When I first covered conflict, we were the only way that a story could get out. People really relied on us to tell their stories. The responsibility felt even greater.
Now we’re in a situation where people can disseminate their own stories. We’re inundated by images and reporting.
It’s so important to understand where you’re getting your information, so when you see something on social media, one cannot automatically take it as truth. In the age of AI, it’s hard to verify images. You cannot just look at an image and know that it’s reality. The role of journalists is more important than ever — doing the fact checking, getting the facts straight.
Is it harder for an image to have lasting impact? I’m remembering the National Geographic cover with the young girl in Afghanistan, [or with] the refugee child, Alan Kurdi, drowned on the beach — images like that.
Alan Kurdi was at a time where we did have social media; we were already inundated by images. There were so many from the refugee crisis, and that image was poignant because of the position of that little boy, the fact that he looked like he was sleeping.
It’s very difficult with images because people need to find a window to relate. They need to find a way into an image. If it’s too graphic, often people will turn away because it’s too hard.
Do you think of that as you’re taking the picture?
I do. I have to frame it slightly differently.
No, I’ll shoot in many different ways. I will shoot the pure graphicness and will also try to make it more palatable. I’ll try to make an image that I think the public can handle and that the New York Times will actually publish — because most people will not publish an image that is gratuitously graphic.
But what is the change you’ve seen? I’m wondering if the appetite for graphic images is less.
I think the appetite is less, but actually the tolerance is more.
We see so many graphic images. If you look at the images that have come out of Gaza, they’re horrific, because what’s happening there is horrific.
It’s not to say that those images will be published in print, but they certainly are out there. We as a public are used to seeing them over and over, and that’s a pretty devastating place to be. We are at a place where I can look at an image and say, That is the most horrible thing I’ve ever seen. But actually, I saw that same image yesterday.
In these interviews, I normally ask people about their weekends.
[Laughs] What’s a weekend?
Is the key dividing line in your life being on assignment versus being at home?
Yes. When I’m working, there are no weekends — obviously.
When I’m home, I’m still working all the time, but I do try to carve out time with my kids. Sometimes my 13-year-old wants nothing to do with me anyway, so it doesn’t really matter. But I’m there, I’m cooking for them and I’m trying to be present.
Addario at home with her son Alfred before leaving on assignment. Photograph: National Geographic/Caitlin Kelly
But the work doesn’t stop? You’re doing the captions, you’re processing the images?
I’m planning the next assignment, and I’m writing another book right now. So that’s taking up a lot of time.
And you exercise. We see you exercising in the film, and it really made me think about the level of physical fitness that is essential for your job.
Most people who do my job are men — young men.
I’m in my 50s. I have to be fit. I have to be able to carry gear, I have to be able to run with it. I have to not let my physical fitness ever get in the way of work.
How do you switch off? Do you switch off?
I switch off when I’m with my friends and family. I make a conscious effort to come home from six weeks in Ukraine and throw a dinner party for 25 people, because it makes me happy.
When I’m on assignment, I try not to think too much about my kids and my family — because then I feel like it will affect the decisions I’m making on the ground. I have to stay focused, so I’m not FaceTiming with my kids every day, I’m not talking to my husband.
But when you picture them — because you do think visually — when you picture the perfect home moment, what’s the image?
Me in the kitchen, cooking or baking, and the kids coming in and out, doing their thing. We have a very unconventional life — much like how I was raised — because we let the kids have a fair amount of freedom in deciding how they want to spend their weekends.
But your life has these two extremes.
And that’s the way you want it, I presume?
I don’t really have a choice. When I decided to have a family, that meant living between two very dramatic extremes. It meant being torn, always, between these two worlds.
Mishal Husain is Editor at Large for Bloomberg Weekend.
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