The second speaker in Penn State Behrend’s Speaker Series came to campus on Thursday to speak about her career as a photojournalist. Lynsey Addario, the author of this year’s Penn State Reads book, “It’s What I Do: A Photographer’s Life of Love and War,” told the story of her career from childhood until now, displayed her photography and answered questions from the audience.

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Addario began taking photos as a preteen and is self taught. She went to college, but did not study photography. To start her career, she began working as a freelancer and eventually contacted some big names in the industry, such as National Geographic and the Boston Globe, when she went on a trip to India to see if they needed a photographer. This allowed her to get into working overseas. Addario has continued to work as a freelancer, rather than becoming a staff member at a company. This gives her more freedom, and once the stories are published from assignments she does for companies, she is able to have ownership of her photos.

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In 2009 Addario was awarded the MacArthur Fellowship and also won a Pulitzer Prize. The MacArthur Fellowship validated Addario’s career in a way nothing else had. Prior to winning the award, she was constantly working and was not sure whether her work was having an impact.

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Throughout her career, Addario has visited many countries and is well known for her documentation of conflict. She has also done considerable work in documenting women’s issues, particularly in the Middle East. In her speech, Addario showed photos from her many trips and told stories about her experiences. She experienced many close calls during her time documenting war. Addario did not initially set out to cover these types of hard issues. Once September 11 occurred, it was only natural for her to go back to the Middle East to document what was happening there.

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“I think it was a culmination of curiosity and also wanting to bear witness and also wanting to hold our policy makers accountable to the decisions they made,” Addario said.

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Addario works to document what is going in as accurately as possible. This includes not altering the situation or using her photographs to skew what is occurring. She is there to tell the stories of the people she is photographing.

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“When I go to a place I’m not just experiencing the war. I’m experiencing the hospitality, the people who are warm and fun and funny. Even in war zones there are always pockets of peace and places where daily life goes on. You don’t often see that in  the media,” Addario said in a recent interview. “So I think we have a very narrow view of what a place is like. If you sit here in America and you look at Iraq, you’re probably going to think the entire place is a war zone. Well that’s not the case at all. I think it’s very different going there and experiencing.”

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Addario has covered stories that she would not have been able to if she was a man. She has been given her access to women in Afghanistan because they cannot be seen unveiled by a man, so therefore men cannot enter family homes in. When asked about how her gender affects her work, Addario generally considers being a woman an asset. Her extensive coverage of women’s issues has shed light on issues such as maternal mortality and women at war. Since becoming a mother, Addario has taken assignments that are less risky, partially because she chose that, but also because she does not get assigned to cover wars anymore. This would not be the case if she was a man. She emphasized that she does what she can to promote equality, but tries not to dwell too much on it.

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“I am more interested in working in America now, I think it’s a very important time to be working at home because there are a lot of issues to cover,” Addario said. She is working on several projects for various publications currently and hopes to do more work in the U.S. Although her work has been difficult emotionally and physically, Addario feels that what she is doing is important and will continue to cover stories that expose important issues.