Topic 2: Lynsey Addario, "It's What I Do" : Response to 'Prelude' and 'Chapter 1'

Required reading, "It's What I Do", and notes from JN134

 

Reflection and Impression 

 

In the 'Prelude' to Lynsey Addario's book, "It's What I Do", Lynsey Addario jumps into an immediate anecdote detailing Libya's rebellion troops and their conflict with Assad Qaddafi's troops in 2011. She trails the rebellion front from Benghazi into Tripoli. From there, the account takes us into the moment she is kidnapped along with her colleagues, Tyler Hicks, Stephen Farrel, and Anthony Shadid. 

Lynsey Addario leaves us in the moment of her mortal vulnerability, to transcend the dialogue into a responsive sentiment upon her happiness, sacrifice and experience within her work.  She then utilizes this explanation as an anchor into her first chapter, which begins with an account of the surrounding familial culture of Lynsey Addario, her life as a child and into a woman.  She establishes generative growth in her experiences from a child into a woman parallel to an adaptation and progression of how she begins her life as a conflict photographer.

The transition from her kidnapping and into her story is fluid, if not captivating. Through her use of personal anecdotes and emphasis on the people within her surrounding environments, Lynsey delicately balances both personal and professional skills and directs us to their origin.

The crux of her own questioning in 'Prelude' seems as though it moves in order to exploit the strenuous measures it takes for her and others within her profession to capture a single photograph. The role of conflict photography in international society is important yet, the necessary risk is a measure often taken for granted from both readers and those within the industry.  Lynsey approaches the reader in first person narrative.  The strategy seems as though it could have derived from which the perspective of the modern audience is collectively, a convenient reader and is constantly exposed to thousands of images everyday.  By choosing a first person perspective and making an immediate stance of what it is we are doing here, as reader and author, she is able to give a linear account of the images that define her environment and we can share them, both socially and learnedly. As a writer and photographer, she is exceptionally smart, not only contextually but within her process. 

She demonstrates that the meaning of her work is equal to the importance of the people that surround her, and each inserted photograph is a visual encounter of their lives as a narrative. For me, the immediate feeling she invokes is passionate and terrifying. I can not even think how I would react given the immediate crisis that she experiences while documenting international conflict.  Yet, despite flying debris, blockades, dodging shrapnel and snipers, all while being in the open, Lynsey Addario uses logic to push through her fear, and also captures the image of its impact on surrounding peoples.  By giving the reader a first hand encounter, her narrative sheds light on the difference between what is primitive reaction, logic, and how it is separate, though related, from one's intuition.

She accentuates the feeling of her intuition from the very beginning, as a looming mood that she tries to gauge as though it has become a machined tool, and she pushes to understand it.  When she succumbs to her instinct to leave the front lines of the rebellion in Tripoli, it is too late and she is then kidnapped, facing her own mortal disposition.  

We are left with the image of her shoe, found three months later at the location of her capture, as though to say, 'Take a look at where I have been and why I chose to walk here'.  The strings are gone, and she hands us a manifesto.

Lynsey chronicles the delicate balance of instinct and skill in 'Prelude, in contrast to 'Chapter 1' where she runs amok with her intuition freely. She exemplifies honing her logic while learning to support herself, exploring in Mexico and making mistakes, both technical and metaphorical. The reader bares witness to her learning process.  She saves money to travel to Cuba on her own, where she realizes that in an unknown culture, social resources are almost monolithic to a body of contextual work.  Congruent to the way Prelude shifts into a Chapter where Lynsey introduces us to her home as a roaring child, she concludes the chapter as a young adult, when she focused on her options in New York, and once again, for the last time, she is living at her birthplace. By doing so, she alludes to her new metaphorical home, behind the camera.

In the concluding photographs she exhibits at the end of 'Chapter 1', we are shown an image of a man combing the hair of his girlfriend, a transgender who works in the streets of New York.  It is an intimate moment, that despite the tough exterior of their lives, Lynsey Addario finds an identity among transgender women who are cast into the lower rungs of society and one way or another, end up selling their bodies.  To these women, Lynsey Addario becomes more than a photographer, but someone they can trust with their cultural identity.  They are also able to forget or become bored with the concept of the camera, and this level of acceptance is accomplished by sincerity and careful patience. Of Prelude and Chapter 1, it is my favorite photograph.  It is the second hook, the first example, of the kind of story one can expect from her book as well as, the evolution in her body of work.   

Applicable Skills and Learning Experiences

By only peeking into the beginning of her story, there are generally applicable skills that translate into JN134, and also in documenting the lives of others as they exist within their own communities and larger society, even after the course.  One of the more conceptual skills would be patience.  She openly states that it is the most important lesson that her mentor, Bebeto, conveyed to during her stint as a stinger in New York for the Associated Press. 

When Lynsey Addario finally comes to grasp this, she is able to move forward in her career.  She figures out the technique behind becoming a ghost (without rendering herself voiceless) in places and among members of cultures where she sticks out like a sore thumb.  There is a focus behind seeing what is in front of you, and what becomes the defining moment to capture in order to expose an environment for who or what it is.  This is something to heed.

Additionally, the extent of her organizational skills and time management is admirable and something to note.  Even though she opens with a description of skeletal equipment for protection, she still knew where everything was at all times, in order for her to shoot.  She was also well connected, which was an effort she mentioned took a great amount of time.  There is information and resources everywhere in this book.  As she draws you into her learning experience, it's harder not to take her experiences as advice. Though we do not shoot conflict photography in Photo Journalism class, there are also technical applications to consider when referencing her opening account.  One of which, is to get closer to the subject, especially when it references action and know the context well enough to render the physical proximity necessary.