The haunting beauty of Lynsey Addario's photography

I discovered a photographer today whose work leaves me nearly speechless.  This doesn't happen often.  What surprises me most is the fact I did not know about Lynsey Addario sooner.  She is one of the most accomplished female photojournalists who ever walked the planet.  Her pictures have that mix of power and sensitivity that almost brings me to tears.  Looking at her work makes me want to put my cameras down and rethink everything.  She is clearly a brave woman with a really thoughtful yet instinctive approach to her work.

I found this image above  particularly poignent.  Turns out it was Time magazine's picture of the year.  What cave have I been living in?

Run, don't walk to see this woman's stunning website.  You will probably realize you have seen her work for years, on the front page of the NY Times, in Time, in National Geographic, but just never stopped to think about the eye behind the lens. At least that's my story.  Now I am a fan for life.

I'm trying to decide which of her editioned prints I want to buy.  I'm thinking it will one of these two:

The Nature of Great Ideas

 I have a lot of great ideas.  I call them "my crazy ideas", and plenty of my friends remind me that if I just acted on any one of them, I might be a much more successful person. 

Here is a personal example of what I believe always happens when you don't act on your creative ideas. Sooner or later, someone takes action.  I think this is the nature of clever ideas....they are all 'out there' and sooner or later, someone chooses to take action on a thought.  I think this happens faster and faster now as we use the internet to 'test' our great ideas, only to find out someone else did it first.  And then we get discouraged into not even trying to create our version of that great idea.  I think that is a shame, because no one will ever do "your great idea" exactly the same way you would do it.

On sale now at Fab

Manhattan Canvas from City Fabric

I feel like I have been waiting for this day when I knew I would see this.  Actually, I first became aware of City Fabric and Matt Tomasulo about a year or so ago.  He had cool figure-ground posters for sale on Fab.com, and just a couple of tshirts as well.  I actually called Matt and told him how much I loved his product (and I bought a Manhattan poster).  I love Fab.  It feels like the place where people who take action on great ideas go!


I had this idea over 25 years ago, when I was an architecture major studying urban design in Paris. I have always been obsessed with maps. I thought a  figure-ground map (that is the technical term) for cities, turned into tshirt designs. would be perfect for Benetton....which was one of the most global fashion companies around at the time.  Finally, someone has done it.   These are mainly US cities. 

In my version, I would have made tshirts of Paris/London/NY  etc....places easily identified by their unique plans.   I loved the idea of sharing a place that can be identified without words (I hate tshirts with words).  I would make posters/mugs/ all kinds of tourist tchotchkes with these graphics. I also had funny ideas about tourists using their tshirts to navigate around town.




At the end of the day, this 'great idea' wasn't important enough to me to pursue (or presumably, I would have pursued it).  It would have taken me on another path....maybe a great path, but ultimately not the one I chose. I left architecture even before graduating and decided to pursue photography.


Young Matt is taking his idea now, when he is recently out of architecture school,  and building a business with it.  I love that.  I have to believe he is following his passion.  For me, seeing this is like having a glimpse at the road I did not take.  And I like it.  I don't feel bad about the choices I made, though sometimes I have little regrets about not being able to act on more of my "crazy ideas".  For me, I think the big idea is still brewing.