Lynsey Addario on Leaving the Comfort Zone

December 05, 2013
2 min read

“It’s very easy for people to live in their own world … and sort of be very comfortable and I like to make people feel uncomfortable every so often, and realize what they have.” —Lynsey Addario

It's very delicate to photograph an Afghan wedding. The women are unveiled and often wear revealing dresses and heavy makeup. They are reluctant to share these images with the outside world. At this Kabul wedding the bride is Fershta. She wears a green dress for the ceremony—a color associated with prosperity and paradise in Islamic tradition. The groom is Amin Shaheen, son of film director Salim Shaheen. The sober expression on his wife's face reflects the fact that marriage is an enormous milestone in an Afghan woman's life, not just a celebratory event.
An Emerald Bride, from National Geographic‘s December 2012 story “Veiled Rebellion.” To view full caption, mouse over image or click to enlarge.

Lynsey Addario has seen her work affect foreign policy and has expressed the hope that her photographs make people stop whatever they’re doing, just for a moment, and think. Addario has worked across the globe, covering issues surrounding war. Much of her work from countries like Afghanistan is about women and women’s issues. She said that it is a “quest for [her] to cover women living under the constraints of a broken country or a broken state.” Addario has been awarded a MacArthur Fellowship, a Getty Images Grant for Editorial Photography, and an ICP Infinity Award.—Kathryn Carlson

This video portrait was produced by National Geographic magazine in partnership with the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. It is part of an ongoing series of conversations with the photographers of the magazine, exploring the power of photography and why this life of imagemaking suits them so well. Learn more about the making of the series and watch the full trailer here.

Follow Lynsey Addario on her website.

Video Production Credits
Photography: Lynsey Addario
Producers: Pamela Chen, NGM
Chad A. Stevens, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Associate Producer: Elyse Lipman, NGM
Interviewer: Barbara Paulsen, NGM
Editor: Kathryn Carlson, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Camera and Sound: Spencer Millsap, NGM
Shannon Sanders, NGM

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