I suppose I'm well overdue to post something here on my blog, and so I figured that I would write another book review for you all. Last night I finished up reading the recently published autobiography by Lynsey Addario called It's What I Do: A Photographer's Life of Love and War. Overall I was impressed with this read, and so I wanted to share my general thoughts about it in this review.
It's What I Do is an autobiographical memoir that focuses on the life and career of photojournalist Lynsey Addario. It specifically details her personal struggle between maintaining a budding career as a war photographer and simultaneously having romantic relationships and starting a family.
Overall, I thought that this was an extremely insightful and interesting book to read, and I found it hard to put down. Addario does a good job at giving readers a glimpse into the personal side of the life of a photojournalist, and the numerous sacrifices that they must make in order to further their careers. Photojournalism has always been an interest of mine, but until reading this book I had never considered just how much these people actually go through to capture images for a story. I also found this book to have a good mix of humor, emotion, and action that really held my interest in what was happening. One final positive element of It's What I Do is its design. Not only are Addario's photographs quite striking (the image of Kahindo and her children on page 189 is my favorite), but in addition the font, margins, and text size made this book that much more enjoyable to read. Kudos to Claire Naylon Vaccaro, who is responsible for the book design!
Alas, I also must mention the negative aspects of this book as well, although they are quite minimal. Firstly, I found the first two-thirds or so of this book to be more interesting to read, and I felt more compelled to continue reading towards the begining. Perhaps this is due to the fact that this portion of the book addressed the start of Addario's career when she was just breaking into photojournalism, and so it was more interesting to me personally. Another negative aspect of It's What I Do, although admittedly the book probably would have been much too long otherwise, is that many elements were skipped over briefly and were hardly mentioned at all. For example, Addario mentions going to places such as Senegal without going into much detail about why or what happened there. As mentioned before, most likely it simply was not possible for the book to explain every single assignment that she went on, but nonetheless it was something that I noticed. One last small issue I had with this book is the occasional narcissistic tone that it seems to take on. On several occasions while reading it, I found myself wishing that the author would go into more detail about the local civilians and victims of violence that she photographs, but instead she tends to explain what she is feeling and how she is giving them a voice. I don't know if this is necessarily a negative aspect of this book; it is about Addario's life after all, so it is reasonable as to why it focuses more on her. I only wish that more had been said about the subjects that she photographs with such passion.
In conclusion, the positives far outshine the negatives of It's What I Do, and I was thoroughly engaged in Addario's life story as presented within its pages. I think that it's a must read if photojournalism, or even photography, is a career that you're trying to enter into or even if it's a personal interest. I found this book to be informative, eye-opening, and most importantly inspiring, and I would definitely recommend it to anyone looking for a new book to delve into.
Author: Lynsey Addario
Genre: Autobiography/memoir
It's What I Do is an autobiographical memoir that focuses on the life and career of photojournalist Lynsey Addario. It specifically details her personal struggle between maintaining a budding career as a war photographer and simultaneously having romantic relationships and starting a family.
Overall, I thought that this was an extremely insightful and interesting book to read, and I found it hard to put down. Addario does a good job at giving readers a glimpse into the personal side of the life of a photojournalist, and the numerous sacrifices that they must make in order to further their careers. Photojournalism has always been an interest of mine, but until reading this book I had never considered just how much these people actually go through to capture images for a story. I also found this book to have a good mix of humor, emotion, and action that really held my interest in what was happening. One final positive element of It's What I Do is its design. Not only are Addario's photographs quite striking (the image of Kahindo and her children on page 189 is my favorite), but in addition the font, margins, and text size made this book that much more enjoyable to read. Kudos to Claire Naylon Vaccaro, who is responsible for the book design!
Alas, I also must mention the negative aspects of this book as well, although they are quite minimal. Firstly, I found the first two-thirds or so of this book to be more interesting to read, and I felt more compelled to continue reading towards the begining. Perhaps this is due to the fact that this portion of the book addressed the start of Addario's career when she was just breaking into photojournalism, and so it was more interesting to me personally. Another negative aspect of It's What I Do, although admittedly the book probably would have been much too long otherwise, is that many elements were skipped over briefly and were hardly mentioned at all. For example, Addario mentions going to places such as Senegal without going into much detail about why or what happened there. As mentioned before, most likely it simply was not possible for the book to explain every single assignment that she went on, but nonetheless it was something that I noticed. One last small issue I had with this book is the occasional narcissistic tone that it seems to take on. On several occasions while reading it, I found myself wishing that the author would go into more detail about the local civilians and victims of violence that she photographs, but instead she tends to explain what she is feeling and how she is giving them a voice. I don't know if this is necessarily a negative aspect of this book; it is about Addario's life after all, so it is reasonable as to why it focuses more on her. I only wish that more had been said about the subjects that she photographs with such passion.
In conclusion, the positives far outshine the negatives of It's What I Do, and I was thoroughly engaged in Addario's life story as presented within its pages. I think that it's a must read if photojournalism, or even photography, is a career that you're trying to enter into or even if it's a personal interest. I found this book to be informative, eye-opening, and most importantly inspiring, and I would definitely recommend it to anyone looking for a new book to delve into.
Author: Lynsey Addario
Genre: Autobiography/memoir
Pages: 357
Year Published: 2015
My Rating: ★★★★☆
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