Lynsey Addario Book Report

Book Report

In Lynsey Addario’s book, she feels a sense of duty to report the things that she does in these dangerous war zones. I personally cannot relate to how she feels about her work. I do not have any interest in risking my life in order to get a picture, no matter how amazing or potentially world changing it might be. She has several experiences where she almost loses her life, for example, in chapter 5, specifically on page 120, she describes an attack in Iraq where she was taking photos, and she left at just the right time. A car bomb went off right where she was standing, and it killed a fellow journalist that was standing right next to her seconds before. For her, she took that as a sign of her good luck, but I would have taken that as a sign to get out of there for good. She was pushing her luck going back to war zones so many times, and she is lucky she didn’t end up like the man she met later in the book, Larry Rougle, whose luck ran out on his sixth tour in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I feel like one photojournalism technique that Lindsay uses which sets her apart from other photographers is her ability to photograph similar situations (of war) and make each photo unique. She talks about doing this in chapter 7, page 190. She says, “Over the years I forced myself to be creative in how I covered the same scenes over and over.” She mentioned doing this when she started going to Africa to cover the war going on over there over the course of five years. The unique perspectives she has are something she shows in all of her work though.

Over the course of this term, I have not had the opportunity to use this technique because all of my subjects were quite different from the rest. Outside of this class though, I have been trying to implement this with things that I take pictures of on a regular basis, like sunsets, for example. I try to get a unique perspective from everyone else.

My top 2 favorite photos from her book are the photo of the child, Khalid, with the injuries on his face from page 243, and the photo of the man standing on the hill side in Africa on page 181. The picture of Khalid is arguably my most favorite only because of the emotion that is conveyed, and the emotion that is evoked. Not to mention, it is a beautiful photo that is sharply focused, has a very narrow, impactful, depth of field, and has perfect lighting. The top photo on page 181 is my second favorite because I love how she framed the man with the sticks. They are coming out of the ground in a linear pattern, and he just fits right in the row. It looks like she achieved this effect by laying on the ground and looking up. The whole photo just flows so naturally, and I really like that. I also really enjoy the lighting that the photo has, it give a mood to the photograph.

My favorite quote from the book is on page 146 and is a simile that Lindsey used to describe how she felt when she was jumping from explosion to explosion in Baghdad to get pictures: “Life felt like a pinball machine, some explosion perpetually flinging us this way or that.” I really like this quote because I feel like it really does a good job of conveying how she felt. It also reveals that she was possibly getting tired of flinging around from one place to the next. I also really like the image the quote creates in my head of her literally being in a pinball machine.

I would recommend this book to others because it has a little something for everyone. It has a love story that I personally enjoyed investing myself in, and for the guys, it has war and violence. I also liked just hearing here story and her dedication to and love for her work, which is something that not a lot of people are lucky to have.