‘I believe people need to see’

As a photographer for the New York Times,her capture by Muammar Gaddafi’s men from the city of Ajdabiya,along with colleagues Anthony Shadid,Stephen Farrell and Tyler Hicks,while covering clashes between government and rebel forces,shocked the world with its audacity. Thirty-seven-year old Addario spent much of her time in New York talking to the press and detailing the assault she faced at the hands of the soldiers. During a brief break at her home in New Delhi,before heading out on assignment again (Senegal this time,then Saudi Arabia,followed by Bangladesh),Addario tries to catch up on lost sleep and long runs.

She speaks with a detachment and focus born from frequent repetitions and steely reserve. In interview after interview,she has described how soldiers blindfolded and bound her and punched her in the face. She details the events with the disinterest of a historian. All the men who came near her would grab at her breasts or butt. A man caressed her face and told her she was going to die. “I am going to be raped,” was the first thought that thundered through her mind. She explains,“I have worked a lot in the Muslim world. It is very rare that people will keep touching you. I just felt that the line had been crossed. That kept happening.” Frequently moved from one location to another,Addario recounts,“The first three days were very horrifying. They would beat us up to assert their power. We didn’t know when we were going to die.”

Is she tired of recounting the capture? “It’s important to tell,” she says,“But it’s hard to keep telling the same story. If you don’t give information,people will come with their own assumptions.” But telling achieves more than that – it publicly shames Gaddafi’s men,she asserts.

Addario is regarded as one of the leading photojournalists in the world whose work sears the gaze and moves the soul. She received the 2009 MacArthur Fellowship,nicknamed the Genius Award. Her photos are remarkable for their beauty and horror,compelling the viewer to see through her unflinching eyes. In her series Afghanistan Self-Immolation,she gains access to homes and hospital burn wards,in a world where photography is still a taboo,to document the open-mouthed agony of 15-year-old victims of self-immolation. In another series One Woman’s Tale of Dying to Give Birth,she tells the story of maternal mortality in Sierra Leone. She says,“In Sierra Leone,I watched a woman bleed to death. I’m not trained to be a doctor. But my instinct told me she was not fine. I tried to bring their (nurses) attention to it. It was obvious to me she was bleeding too much. But no one seemed to be listening. There’s one doctor in the whole province. He was unwell,he couldn’t come. You realise the shortcomings of the whole system.”

As a photographer,Addario has stood at the frontline. As a female photographer,she has gained access to homes and lives beyond the reach of male photographers. But she steers clear of the tag of a woman photographer. The graphic accounts of her sexual assault in Libya have been met by outrage and horror. In an interview with the Committee to Protect Journalists,she said,“It was horrible for all of us. I don’t understand why this is so much worse for me? Is it because I’m a woman? I don’t know who has the answer to that question.” Addario brings to par the sexual assault she faced and the physical brutalities her male colleagues endured. She says,“How can people know who has suffered more? Yes,I was blindfolded,groped,punched in the face. But it was traumatic for all of us. No one’s trauma was worse.”

In the close-knit and macho world of combat photographers,Addario stands tall as one of the few women. This 5 ft 1” brunette says,“I never wanted to be a war photographer. I wanted to cover humanitarian issues,human right abuses. In some regions,it was about combat. I was drawn into it.”

Two of her friends and fellow war photographers,Tim Hetherington and Chris Hondros,recently died in Libya,while embedded with the rebel forces. Their death left her paralysed and incapacitated for a week. “They’ve covered every war for the last decade,” says Addario. “Sometimes it’s just bad luck. There’s no reason why we survived.”

Another friend Joao Silva lost both his legs in Afghanistan when a landmine exploded under him. Silva and Greg Marinovich,a South African photojournalist,authored The Bang-Bang Club (2000),about four photographer friends working during the end of apartheid in South Africa. Today,only the authors survive. In an article,‘The Inner Lives of Wartime Photographers’,Bill Keller,New York Times executive editor,delves into the motivations of combat photographers. He writes,“You can see the almost-unbearable sympathy in the best of their work,and it is an adhesive that binds them to one another. What people mistake for emotional distance,I think,is an intensity of experience that an outsider cannot fully penetrate.”

Having nearly died (in a 2009 car accident in Pakistan,just before her wedding),having been kidnapped (twice) and assaulted physically,what binds Addario to her job? “I believe people need to see. It’s better to be a messenger. It’s very important so show what’s happening on the ground.” She adds,“I don’t care about people’s judgments. If I can provoke a conversation,open people’s eyes,make them sad,make them happy,if people are talking — that’s a good thing.”

When she started shooting photos at the age of 11,Addario,hailing from a large Italian-American family,preferred inanimate objects,as she was too scared to photograph real people. Her father used to work as a hairdresser in Connecticut (300km outside New York). A client once gave him a small Nikon camera,which she immediately fell in love with. She taught herself photography with an Ansel Adams book in hand. At the University of Wisconsin,Madison,she started shooting more but graduated in International Relations and Italian. By the age of 20,she had decided that photography was the profession for her.

It quickly submerged her life. In January 2000,she moved to New Delhi for eight months,covering Afghanistan under Taliban rule,Pakistan and Nepal with the city as her base. With her office being the frontline,she spends only 60 to 80 days in a year in Delhi,where her husband,a journalist,now lives.

Accustomed to photographing in gunfire,sleeping on the ground,eating protein bars for three weeks,Addario knows how to travel light. But the one constant in her travel kit is her coffee press mug. “In Libyan custody I’d such a bad headache for three days since I couldn’t get coffee,” she says with a warm laugh.