Weekend Listen: Lynsey Addario Keeps Going Back to Photograph War

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1:02Bloomberg Audio Studios. Podcasts, radio, news. A note before we start that this conversation includes an account of abduction, violence and sexual assault that some listeners may find distressing. We went on daily patrols six, seven hours a day. We were shot at, ambushed, and then we had to jump out of Blackhawks in the middle of the night into the heart of Taliban territory. Lindsay Adario, Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer and chronicler of the extreme and the everyday. My job is to bear witness to everything that happens. In conflict zones, women continue to deliver babies. I see marriages, divorce.

1:47I see death and life. Do you love the job? It's something that I do from my heart and my soul. From Bloomberg Weekend, this is The Michelle Hussain Show. I'm Michelle Hussain.

2:06There've been times in my professional life when I've had to take a flak jacket and body armour with me on assignment. Not that I've ever been a war reporter, but there are places I've needed to go to which carried risk and you always need to be prepared. Whenever I saw that kit in the hallway before a trip, I always felt a moment of gratitude that this wasn't part of my everyday work. For Lindsay Adario, though, it is. She's an award-winning photographer who's worked in war zones from Afghanistan and Ukraine to Sudan. Sometimes it's the writer, the correspondent travelling with her, who ends up getting more of the attention from an assignment.

2:49But it's Lindsay's pictures which bring their words to life. Some years ago, she wrote her own book about the places she's been, the extreme situations she's experienced, including being kidnapped twice, once in Iraq and once in Libya. If you're thinking there aren't many women in this field, you'd be right. And that's part of why there's a new documentary about her on Disney+. us. Intriguingly, it's called Love and War, which is why when we spoke, I asked her, how does love come into it? Love comes into it in the balance with my family. You have war and then you come home to this sort of nest of love with my children, my husband, also my sisters and my parents.

3:40But I think also So the thing about war is that you see these incredible scenes of love and generosity and kindness and selflessness alongside brutality, of course. You get a sense of love that actually sort of binds people in these horrific moments. You've witnessed birth. You've certainly witnessed death. You've witnessed grief. All of this is part of what you do. Yeah, I mean, my job is to bear witness to everything that happens in conflict zones and also outside of conflict zones. And so I'm seeing daily life continue under these very difficult circumstances. So that means, yes, women continue to deliver babies.

4:22You know, I see marriages, I see divorce, I see everything. I see death and life. Do you love the job? Is that also part of the love that's in this? I mean, I don't think anyone could cover war without loving the job. It's something that I do from my heart and my soul. It's something that I do because I believe in it. Going back in time, I wondered if we could talk about two turning points. I think they're turning points. The first of which is 9-11, and you're already working as a photographer, but is that the moment where you become a war photographer? Yeah. So I was photographing for many years and then I moved to India in 2000.

5:05And in India, I started becoming aware of women's issues in Afghanistan. Taliban had to come to power. Exactly. Women's lives are being restricted. Exactly. And so I was reading about that and I was reading a lot about women's issues in Afghanistan. And as a young woman, I was curious, you know, what do Afghan women think? Not necessarily what does the West think of what Afghan women must feel, but what do they actually think? And so I went to Afghanistan as I was 26 years old and I borrowed money from my sister. And I started doing a lot of reporting and photographing what I could of women living under the Taliban.

5:42And I ended up making three trips to Afghanistan before September 11th. So when September 11th happened and the U.S. was gearing up for war in Afghanistan, it felt very natural for me to go there because I was already quite familiar with it. And so you had a hard time, hadn't you, selling those pictures? Yeah, I couldn't give them away. No one was interested. No one was interested because it was before September 11th and very few journalists were actually working in Afghanistan at the time. Photography was illegal under the Taliban. So the LA Times published some pictures, but really it was difficult to get them published.

6:20And that all changed suddenly with international interest in the country after 9-11. And was there a sense of excitement or thrill then for you that new opportunities are dawning? Well, I think after September 11th, what became exciting for me is that I had this knowledge that I had procured on my own. and then suddenly it was relevant on a world stage. And so the New York Times sent me on my first big assignment for them, which was covering Pakistan leading up to the fall of the Taliban. And then the New York Times magazine put me on assignment to do the Women of Jihad. And so I started working pretty consistently for the New York Times then.

7:01But that's when you, I guess, you have to learn that there are risks involved in your work, right? You start to have to evaluate that. Like covering a war is something completely different to you at that stage. Absolutely. At that time, there were suicide bombers. There were smaller scale attacks. The U.S. started bombing Afghanistan. And then we had to navigate how to go in. There was a whole, you know, when do you go into a country when the government or the Taliban was falling? You know, when is it safe to actually move into a place that's very hostile? And so it's always a learning curve. You know, now with Ukraine, it's drones.

7:38And so I think it's ever evolving. The other turning point I wondered about in your career was Iraq in 2004, because you had the first of your abduction, kidnap experiences then. Take me back to that time and that place, the really chaotic period after the U.S. invasion, the year afterwards. I mean, even leading up to the U.S. invasion, when I was offered to go into Iraq, I didn't think, I really wasn't sure I could handle a military embed at that point. I had never been in combat. I was offered a position with the 101st Airborne. I did not take it. 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.

8:24I didn't know what it would feel like to be under fire because even though I covered the fall of the Taliban, it was not combat. This is going to be frontline. Yeah. And I really didn't want to be responsible for holding anyone up or being scared. I just wasn't sure how I would respond. And so I ended up going into northern Iraq from Iran. And many journalists did. And we were sort of covering the Kurdish territory. And there was a proxy war. It was Al-Ansar fighting U.S. forces backed by Kurdish special forces. And it was there that I was in my first attack. That was a very close call that actually killed a journalist standing where I had been standing.

9:07And we were covering refugees fleeing this area, something that I've covered a million times now. and all the locals were warning us to leave and we went to leave and literally an incoming round came in and landed so close to our car that our entire car flew forward. And as we evacuated, we went to this school like a few kilometers down the road and a taxi pulled up and said, is there a journalist here? And everyone was regathering. And the taxi driver said, I have the body of a journalist in my trunk. Can someone help me identify him? And I just, I remember looking at him and I ran behind the school and just started sobbing and thinking, I don't want to do this for a living.

9:52I don't think I can stay here. But there was no way out because Saddam was still in power. We couldn't go south. Iran wouldn't let us back in. And I basically had to learn how to deal with my fear and how to cover war in northern Iraq. So before the kidnapping in Iraq, there were like these gradual close calls. Maybe that's almost a sliding doors moment, that one, because had there been a way out, I probably would have. And you might not have gone back to that kind of zone again. But then you were there in Iraq again, and you were out one day with other journalists. And that was when you got held up at a checkpoint near Fallujah.

10:30Yeah. So I basically spent all of 2003 and the beginning of 2004 in Iraq. I was working with a colleague for the New York Times, and we heard there was a helicopter down, a marine helicopter down. So we went. The only road open was a smuggler's route. And as we were nearing the outskirts of Fallujah, we turned a corner, and literally the entire road was full of insurgents with keffias, their faces wrapped, rockets on their backs, Kalashnikovs. They started shooting in the air. It was terrifying. They pulled all the men out of the car. I was dressed in full hijab, so by a headscarf, everything.

11:08And they left me sitting in the car. And I was looking out the window watching my colleague get led away. But this is where you did something really interesting. You said that colleague was your husband. Yeah. I thought if I did that, they would take us as a couple and 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, Lindsay. I'm trying to imagine being in the same position and you're in not safety, but you're in a more protected position in this car and you're connecting yourself to someone who's being led away.

11:47I guess, but you would probably do the same thing. I mean, you work in teams in these places. And when you work in war zones, there is a solidarity. And so 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. And I think it did help defuse it, didn't it? I think it did. In the end, I think it did. They held us for a day. It was terrifying. Of course, we had guns to our heads. They questioned us repeatedly. And in the end, they ended up letting us go. You've also been on embeds with the US in Afghanistan. And when you've written about it in your book, I think one gets a sense of the humanity of the soldiers, as well as the civilians.

12:32You You were embedded, I think, with one group for two months. And at the end of that, some of those you'd been with were killed. Correct. I was embedded with the 173rd Airborne in the Korongal Valley. And that was in 2007, at the time, arguably the most dangerous place in Afghanistan. And 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 U.S. military had. And so we were very lucky because we were allowed as women to go to sort of the heart of the war. And we spent two months with them and witnessed, you know, went on daily patrols six, seven hours a day.

13:13We were shot at, ambushed. And then at the end, we went on Operation Rock Avalanche, which was a battalion-wide operation. we had to jump out of Blackhawks in the middle of the night into the heart of Taliban territory. And it was really on these missions that 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. Because 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 just sort of 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 and young American soldiers dying and Afghans dying.

14:04So what was it for? And you don't see those scenes unless you really invest the time. But did you have those conversations? I'm wondering what the dynamic is like on an embed when you can clearly see this because you know Afghanistan and you know how the civilians feel about the presence and it's evident in the fact that the attacks are taking place. But do you have those conversations with the soldiers? Not really. I mean, I think for them at that time, they were sort of despondent because they had been there so long. It was so incredibly dangerous. I mean, we were shot at almost every day on every patrol.

14:42They were living in bunkers on the side of a mountain. And everyone was really lonely. Their personal lives were falling apart. And so they would talk about, what are we doing here? But I think in terms of the greater political context, no, we never went there. It was very much about just kind of being there, having the trust of the soldiers, being able to access these embeds and these scenes. Do you think your presence represents something to them, some kind of a semblance of a world outside? Yeah. They kept asking us, like, you're really here because you want to be here? You know, they could not believe it.

15:16And so I think they were very grateful that we were there, that the American public can see their service, could see what they were going through. I think that for them, it's like a validation of what they're doing. One of the people who was later killed in action, you knew that he was planning to go home and propose to his girlfriend and you end up photographing his body bag. Yeah. We were ambushed in Operation Rock Avalanche and it was so chaotic and we heard that there was man down and I'm photographing and I realized I had photographed two of the three wounded and then as I was making my way to the landing zone where the medevac was coming in to take out the wounded, I thought, where's Rugal?

16:00Because I knew his call sign and he hadn't come out. And then I saw the scout team sort of emerging from the dust carrying a body bag. And it was in that moment that I thought, I can't believe he's dead. You know, this young man who was so alive and talking about his future and then seeing him be carried in a body bag was really devastating. And the other soldiers are crying. And then I was crying, of course, because you make that connection and then you think of his parents, you think of his loved ones, and you think they don't even know yet that they've lost their loved one. Do you ever struggle with leaving any of that behind at the end of the day because you also need to, you must need to compartmentalize?

16:42Or do you not think of it that way? Is the emotion part of what makes you a great photographer? I think a combination. I mean, I definitely allow myself to feel and I have, I think, an extraordinary amount of empathy and that I wish I wasn't so emotional. But I think that it's important, you know, and I think that 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 and I owe it to now 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 it a point to not just forget about things but I definitely have to compartmentalize so that I can be present.

17:25Should we go back in time then to your birth family, your parents and your sisters when you were growing up. I think because you're the youngest of four, you older sisters have said that they deserve some credit for what you are because they toughened you up. Yeah, they were really tough on me. I mean, anyone who has older sisters knows it's generally not an easy path. We grew up in Connecticut and a very sort of open eccentric household. My parents are hairdressers and we had very few rules in our house growing up. But my three older sisters, who I'm now very close to were really tough on me.

18:00I mean, they'd sort of, they'd beat me up, they picked on me, they'd call me names. They were constantly slamming the door in my face and telling me I couldn't join in. And I guess, yeah, in a sense, they did toughen me up. You had to go really far from home to carve out your own path, I feel. Yes, I did. But your parents being hairdressers, I mean, I'm thinking hairdressers have to be good with people. They have to be able to talk to anyone. And perhaps that is a thread that you've brought into your professional life. It was really a household where we sort of opened our doors to anyone and everyone.

18:32And I think that that made me who I am in terms of being able to walk into any situation, not be judgmental, really be able to accept people for who they are and where they're at. What was the first time you picked up a camera? How did that happen? My father gave me a camera when I was about 12 years old. A client of his gave him a camera. And I remember I had no idea how to use it, so I started reading all these manuals of like how to photograph. And so I started taking pictures of inanimate objects because I was too shy to approach people, and then I would sit on the roof and try and photograph the moon.

19:13And it was an awakening for me of sort of a different way of expressing. But it really wasn't until I graduated and then I started photographing people and really started becoming aware of photojournalism as a way to tell stories. But you hadn't grown up with photojournalism, is that right? No. I think yours wasn't a house which had newspapers coming in. You're not looking at images of conflicts around the world. Really, it was not an intellectual family. We had no books in the house except for the encyclopedias. And so it wasn't until really I went to university and I was determined to do something that was more intellectual obviously because I grew up in such a creative family and I studied international relations and I did not want to be a photographer at all.

19:58And then I graduated and the only thing I wanted to do was photograph. And it wasn't until I realized that you can, photojournalism was sort of this great marriage between and art. That it existed. Yeah, that it existed, which sounds ridiculous. But if you don't grow up in a family with newspapers and where you're constantly sort of privy to what's happening in the world, why would I have known about photojournalism? Your craft today, when you go out on assignment, and you've been on many tough assignments, including Ukraine and recently Sudan and Gaza and other places. But when you're going out, and you presume you want to come back that day with something good.

20:35Yeah, of course. Of course. What do you set out to do? Do you set out to think, today I really want to capture a particular kind of scene? Or are you going with the flow? No. I guess what people don't understand is that photojournalism and being a photographer is not just about taking photos. There is so much that goes into it. So as I'm gearing up for a trip, I spend an extraordinary amount of time doing research, updating myself on what's happening right now. Are you looking for locations or thinking everything? That hospital is somewhere I'd like to go to. That kind of person is someone I want to find.

21:11I'm looking for themes. I'm looking for contacts. I'm looking for hospitals. I'm looking for schools. I'm looking for what is the story of the moment? What is important and how can I advance the story? What's not being told? What's happening to women? Is rape being used as a weapon of war? I'm looking for sort of everything. So when I finally get on the ground in a country, every day I have a list of things in my head. I'm making notes. I'm doing reporting on the ground. I'm constantly updating my shoot list. and sometimes things are serendipitous. Sometimes I'll be driving and I'll see this extraordinary scene and I'll stop the car and that might be the photo for the day.

21:51But I always have an agenda somewhere. But that shoot list, when you're thinking about it in advance and making that list, is it visual that you actually have, do you think in that way? Yes. I think in words. Do you think in images? I think in images. In Sudan, for example, I knew that food is an issue and there is malnutrition. And so when I'm going in, I know I have to look for a communal kitchen, one of the emergency response rooms, food distribution. You know, is there some place that I can show that people are starving? I'm making a list because there are things I've read about. There are things that I know help comprehensively tell a story.

22:30And so it's not just about showing up somewhere and looking for pretty pictures.

22:50There was a day early in the war in Ukraine in February 2022 when you were out and you ended up seeing the aftermath, immediate aftermath, actually being almost in the middle of a Russian strike on evacuated civilians. Tell me about that day because it led to a famous image that you've taken, but I want to know the before and the after. So it was actually March 6, 2022. And at that point, the situation in Bucha in Irpin was a bit of a mystery. Everyone knew the Russians were there. They had sort of encircled the area. A lot of civilians started fleeing to Kiev across the broken Irpin Bridge. The bridge had been broken intentionally by the Ukrainian forces to stop the Russian advance.

23:35And so I had seen these photographs of hundreds of Ukrainian civilians leaving Buchan-Irpin across the bridge the day before. And I didn't know about it. And I was really upset with myself because it was a really important moment in the conflict. And so I made a plan to go the following morning. And it felt incredibly tense. And I had been warned that there was shelling on the other side of the bridge. And so we took cover behind this wall near the bridge, and we were photographing civilians leaving. And it was a known civilian evacuation route. So when the first mortar round came in, I thought, well, the Russians know this is all civilians, so they won't kill them.

24:20Because, of course, Putin had said repeatedly, we are not targeting civilians. And so my security advisor said, would you like to leave? And I said, no, no, no, they're not going to target this. This is all women and children and elderly. And so I was shooting, and then another round came in a bit closer. And so we dove for cover behind the cement wall. And almost immediately, a third round came in and landed with like 20 meters between me and this family. And I saw the flash of the round, the mortar round hit the pavement, and it was a ball of flames, and dove behind this wall. And when I popped up, I thought that it was a soldier that had been knocked down because they were calling for a medic.

25:04And as I approached, I realized that there were children. I mean, I first noticed these moon boots, and I thought, I can't believe there was a family. and I'm scanning the scene and I'm shooting and there's still rounds coming in. So I know I have to work quickly. Of course, my instinct is to leave, but I don't want to leave because I've just witnessed what I thought was a war crime. And so I'm shooting and then I work my way around the scene and I see the faces. And 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.

25:43and I'm trying to do it in a respectful way and in a way that's dignified, of course. I don't know if the family is dead or alive and then we have to run away because they're around still coming in. And when I get back to the car, I called my editor and I said, I've just witnessed this and I'll send you photographs if they're in focus. Of course, I had no idea if I'd even properly made pictures because I was still in shock. And the New York Times did make a decision to run the photos on the front page. On the House floor, they were used, they went sort of viral just to prove that civilians were being targeted.

26:22Why was that so exceptional to publish those pictures? Because these are corpses, these are faces of corpses that are visible in your picture. In my many years of covering war, it is always a huge debate whether to publish the dead, especially when their faces are identifiable. In this case, I tried to shoot in a way where their faces were not, but it wasn't very graphic. It looked as if everyone was sleeping. They had been knocked over by the sheer impact of the blast that we had only been spared because actually the blast went in their direction and not our direction. You said you were shocked, but were you also angry?