It's What I Do: A Photographer's Life of Love and War (2 page)

Rebel fighters push the front line forward on a day of heavy fighting, 2011.

When I arrived in Benghazi two weeks earlier, it was a newly liberated city, a familiar scene to me, like Kirkuk after Saddam or Kandahar after the Taliban. Buildings had been torched, prisons emptied, a parallel government installed. The mood was happy. One day I visited some men who had gathered in town for a military training exercise. It resembled a Monty Python skit: Libyans stood at attention in strict configurations or practiced walking like soldiers or gaped at a pile of weapons in bewilderment. The rebels were just ordinary men—doctors, engineers, electricians—who had thrown on whatever green clothes or leather jackets or Converse sneakers they had in their closet and jumped in the backs of trucks loaded with Katyusha rocket launchers and rocket-propelled grenades. Some men lugged rusty Kalashnikovs; others gripped hunting knives. Some had no weapons at all. When they took off down the coastal road toward Tripoli, the capital city, still ruled by Qaddafi, journalists jumped into their boxy four-door sedans and followed them to what would become the front line.

We traveled alongside them, watched them load ammunition, and waited. Then one morning, one of the first days on that lonely strip of highway, a helicopter gunship suddenly swooped down low over our heads and unleashed a barrage of bullets, spitting at us indiscriminately. The gaggle of fighters shot up the air with Kalashnikovs. One boy threw a rock; another, his eyes wild with terror, ran for a sand berm. I ducked beside the front of a tin-can car and took a picture of him and knew this would be a different kind of war.

The front line moved along a barren road surrounded by sand that stretched flat to the blue horizon. Unlike in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, there were no bunkers to jump into, no buildings to hide behind, no armored Humvees in which to crouch down on the floor. In Libya, when we heard the hum of a warplane, we went through the motions: We stopped, looked up, and cowered in anticipation of rounds of ammunition or bombs and tried to guess where they would land. Some people lay on their backs; some people covered their heads; some people prayed; and some people ran, just to run, even if it was to nowhere. We were always exposed to the massive Mediterranean sky.

I had been a conflict photographer for more than ten years and had covered war in Afghanistan, Iraq, Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Lebanon. I had never seen anything as scary as Libya. The photographer Robert Capa once said, “If your pictures aren’t good enough, you’re not close enough.” In Libya, if you weren’t close enough, there was nothing to photograph. And once you got close enough, you were in the line of fire. That week I watched some of the best photojournalists in the business, veterans of Chechnya and Afghanistan and Bosnia, leave almost immediately after those first bombs fell. “It’s not worth it,” they said. There were several moments when I, too, thought to myself,
This is insane
.
What am I doing?
But there were other days when I felt that familiar
exhilaration, when I
thought,
I am actually watching an uprising unfold. I am watching these people fighting to the death for their freedom. I am documenting the fate of a society that has been oppressed for decades.
Until you get injured or shot or kidnapped, you believe you are invincible. And it had been a few years since anything had happened to me.

The other journalists were leaving the scene at the hospital. I knew it was time to return to the front line. The sounds of war echoed in the distance—shelling, antiaircraft fire, ambulance sirens. I didn’t want Paul to hear the noise. “Baby, I have to go. I’ll see you soon, my love. Love you.”

Long ago I learned that it is cruel to make loved ones worry about you. I tell them only what they need to know: where I am, where I am going, and when I am coming home.

 • • • 

I
WAS THERE
on assignment for the
New York Times
with three other award-winning journalists: Tyler Hicks, a photographer and a friend whom, oddly enough, I had grown up with in Connecticut; Anthony Shadid, arguably the best reporter working in the Middle East; and Stephen Farrell, a British-Irish journalist who had worked in war zones for years. Between us, we had about fifty years of experience working in awful places. We had entered the country illegally from Egypt, along with hordes of other journalists.

We left the suburban hospital together and headed toward the center of Ajdabiya to look for the front line. Anthony and Steve were in one car, and Tyler and I were in another with our driver, Mohammed. It had been difficult to find a good driver in Libya. Mohammed, a soft-spoken university student with a fresh face and a gap between his front teeth, drove us around long after most other drivers had quit. To him, the job was a contribution to the revolution. A driver like Mohammed, who was tapped into a network of other drivers and rebels, helped us decide where we could go and how long we could stay. His directions often determined our fate. His contribution was invaluable.

As we edged down an empty road in the center of town, artillery shells pierced the pavement nearby, sending shards of shrapnel in every direction. Anthony and Steve’s driver suddenly stopped his car and began off-loading their belongings onto the pavement. He was quitting. His brother had been shot at the front line. Without pausing, Mohammed pulled up our car and put their gear in our trunk, and Anthony and Steve piled into our car. I felt uneasy. In war zones journalists often travel in convoys of two vehicles, in case one vehicle fails. Two vehicles also ensure that if one is hit or attacked, fewer people will suffer the consequences.

Four journalists in one car also meant too many chefs in the kitchen: We each had a different idea of what we wanted to do. As we drove on, Anthony, Tyler, Steve, and I debated the level of danger. It is often this way in war zones for journalists and photographers: an endless negotiation of who needs what, who wants to stay, who wants to go. When do we have enough reporting and photographs to depict the story accurately? We want to see more fighting, to get the freshest, latest news, to keep reporting until that unknowable last second before injury, capture, death. We are greedy by nature: We always want more than what we have. The consensus in the car at that point was to keep working.

Ajdabiya was a prosperous, low-slung North African city of peach, yellow, and tan cement buildings with thick-walled balconies and vibrant storefront signs in painted Arabic. The few civilians on the streets were fleeing. They ran with conviction, carrying their belongings atop their heads. An endless stream of cars sped past us in the opposite direction. Families had crammed into every inch of pickup trucks and four-door sedans; blankets and clothes packed haphazardly into rear windows spilled out the back. Some families crouched under tarps. It was the first time I actually saw women and children in the town of Ajdabiya. In a conservative society like Libya’s, women often stayed indoors. I was seeing them outside their homes now only because they were leaving, heading east as the fighting pushed into the city from the west.

I feared that it was our time to leave, too. The steady exodus of civilians out of the city meant the locals anticipated that Ajdabiya would fall into the hands of Qaddafi’s troops. Had they already arrived? We knew what might happen to us if Qaddafi’s men discovered four illegal Western journalists in rebel territory. He had declared in public speeches that all journalists in eastern Libya were spies and terrorists and that, if found, they would be killed or detained.

We returned to the hospital to check in with other journalists and gauge the casualties from the encroaching battle. Anthony, Steve, and Tyler went inside to get the phone numbers of a Libyan doctor so they could call him later that night from Benghazi and report the final casualty toll for the day. For reporters it was necessary to have sources inside the city in case power changed hands and we couldn’t get back in. I stayed on the side of the road across the street from the hospital to photograph fleeing Libyans.

On the sidewalk where I stood a French photographer I knew from Iraq and Afghanistan deliberated his next move with several French journalists. They spoke in low, serious voices tinged with the sarcasm journalists use to temper their nerves. French journalists, in general, are known for being fearless and crazy. The joke was that if the French left a combat zone before you, you were screwed. Laurent Van der Stockt, a notoriously gutsy conflict photographer, who had covered most of the major wars of the past two decades—he had been shot twice and hit once by shrapnel from a mortar round on the front line—was staring at the long line of cars draining out of the city.

He turned to me. “We’re leaving,” he said. “It’s time to go back to Benghazi.” This meant they had made the decision to retreat from the action to a city that was as much as one hundred miles, and two hours, away. They were calling it a day. Laurent had decided the pictures weren’t worth the risk. They thought the situation too dangerous.

I watched in horror as they scrambled into their cars, but I said nothing. I didn’t want to be the cowardly photographer or the terrified girl who prevented the men from doing their work. Tyler, Anthony, and Steve had each spent more than a decade working in war zones; they knew what they were doing. Maybe my judgment was off that day. As we continued the drive into Ajdabiya, I looked out the window and tried to retreat to a comforting place in my mind. The mosques around the city blasted the call to prayer.

Cars streamed past us. We were the only car going the other way.

“Guys, it’s time to go,” Steve said, and I sensed I had an ally in my fear.

“Yeah, I think so, too,” I said.

I was grateful for Steve’s voice of reason, but our suggestion went unanswered by Tyler and Anthony.

 • • • 

W
HEN WE REACHED A ROUNDABOUT,
Tyler and Anthony got out and walked off to interview some rebels. Some were watching the approaching action with nonchalance; others were scurrying around, shooting their weapons into the air. I was directionless. I didn’t want to be here or there, and could barely lift my camera to my eyes. Even the most experienced photographers have days like this: You can’t frame a shot, catch the moment. My fear was debilitating, like a physical handicap. Tyler, meanwhile, was in his element, focused and relentless. I imagined the images he was capturing while I was clumsy, scared, missing the scenes, clicking the shutter too late.

As I ran forward to follow him, I heard the familiar
whoosh
of a bullet. I looked up at the rooftops: Qaddafi snipers were in the city. I assumed that everyone realized the gravity of the situation, but back near the car Anthony was drinking tea with a handful of men beside an ammunition truck, chatting happily in Arabic. He looked older than his forty-something years, with his gray beard and soft stomach. His eyes sparkled, warm and friendly, as he listened to the Libyans, calmly smoking his cigarette and throwing his hands around as he spoke, as if hanging out with friends by a pool.

But Steve, who had been kidnapped twice—once in Iraq, once in Afghanistan—looked spooked. He stood by our car with Mohammed, as if this might inspire the others to finish their work. The locals around us were screaming, “Qanas! Qanas!” (Sniper! Sniper!)

Mohammed was getting frantic. “We have to go to Benghazi,” he pleaded. His brother had been calling, warning that Qaddafi’s men had entered the city from the west. He called us all back to the car, and we took off for the eastern gate of town.

On the road toward the exit Tyler asked Mohammed to stop the car one last time to check out a team of rebel fighters setting up rocket-propelled grenades. He reluctantly pulled off to the side of the road, and Tyler leapt out to shoot, buoyed by a rush of adrenaline I knew well—that feeling of satisfaction when doing reporting that few others would dare do. Mohammed immediately called his brother again to check in. I knew we were pushing the boundaries, lingering after we had been warned to leave, but my desire to pull back to safety felt like a terrible weakness. My colleagues would never have accused me of being wimpy or unprofessional; I was the one who was all too aware of being the only woman in the car.

A car pulled up alongside us: “They’re in the city! They’re in the city!”

“Tyler!” Mohammed shouted, his face wrecked with fear.

“Let’s
go
!” Steve screamed. Tyler clambered into the car and we took off.

The night before, my editor, David, and I agreed that I would call him at 9 a.m. in New York. I checked my watch and dialed his number. I couldn’t get a line out. I dialed again. Nothing. I kept redialing his extension, over and over and over, punching at the phone. When I looked up and squinted into the distance, I saw something I hadn’t seen in weeks: traffic.

“I think it’s Qaddafi’s men,” I said.

Tyler and Anthony shook their heads. “No way,” Tyler said.

Within seconds, the fuzzy horizon distilled into little olive figurines. I had been right.

Tyler realized it, too. “Don’t stop!” he screamed.

You have two options when you approach a hostile checkpoint, and both are a gamble. The first option is to stop and identify yourselves as journalists and hope that you are respected as neutral professionals. The second option is to blow past them and hope they don’t open fire on you.

“Don’t stop! Don’t stop!” Tyler was yelling.

But Mohammed was slowing down, sticking his head out of the window.

“Sahafi! Media!” he yelled to the soldiers. He opened the car door to get out, and Qaddafi’s soldiers swarmed around him. “Sahafi!”

In one fluid movement the doors flew open and Tyler, Steve, and Anthony were ripped out of the car. I immediately locked my door and buried my head in my lap. Gunshots shattered the air. When I looked up, I was alone. I knew I had to get out of the car to run for cover, but I couldn’t move. I spoke to myself out loud, a tactic I used when my inner voice wasn’t convincing enough: “Get out of the car. Get out. Run.” I crawled across the backseat with my head down and out the open car door, scrambled to my feet, and immediately felt the hands of a soldier pulling at my arms and tugging at my two cameras. The harder he pulled, the harder I pulled back. Bullets whipped by us. Dirt kicked up all around my feet. The rebels were barraging the army’s checkpoint from behind us, from the place we had just fled. The soldier pulled at my camera with one hand and pointed his gun at me with the other.