Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Lynsey Addario has built an extraordinary career spanning more than two decades by risking her life to capture the world's most critical stories. The accomplished photojournalist, who has been kidnapped multiple times and faced countless near-death experiences, continues her mission of powerfully documenting global conflicts and their devastating effects on civilians, particularly women and children. Her incredible journey is now the subject of a brand-new National Geographic documentary titled "LoveWar."

The documentary provides viewers with an intimate behind-the-scenes look at how Addario manages to balance her dangerous work in conflict zones, including her recent and frequent assignments in war-torn Ukraine, with her personal life as a wife and mother. She often spends weeks and even months away from her husband and children, living and working in extremely hazardous conditions abroad. Each time she departs for an assignment, she faces significant risks and pays a steep emotional and physical price.

Despite these challenges, Addario remains deeply committed to her dual mission: capturing world-changing photographs that transform how people understand global conflicts while safely returning home to be with her family. Her acclaimed work has fundamentally changed public perception of warfare and its impact on innocent victims. The documentary explores how she navigates these competing passions, resulting in some of the film's most compelling scenes about the reality of being a conflict photographer.

Throughout "LoveWar," Addario reflects on many of the most significant and emotionally powerful experiences from her nearly 25-year career, both triumphant and traumatic. "I think it's been hard to revisit a lot of these situations and a lot of these images," Addario told PetaPixel. "I have been doing this a very, very long time, almost 25 years, and a lot of the people I've photographed over the years still live with me and I carry their stories with me."

Addario explains that most of the time, she remains focused solely on her work, taking the necessary shots before moving on to the next story that demands attention. However, she acknowledges that on the relatively rare occasions when she must sit down and truly grapple with her experiences, the process becomes incredibly difficult. The emotional weight of the human stories she documents continues to affect her long after she's moved on to new assignments.

One particularly challenging assignment involved photographing Mamma Sessay, an 18-year-old mother in Sierra Leone. In May 2010, Sessay gave birth to twins, with the first baby delivered successfully. However, complications arose when the second child failed to arrive easily, and her contractions stopped. Addario accompanied Sessay on a harrowing journey by canoe and ambulance from her remote village to a hospital, where Sessay tragically suffered postpartum hemorrhaging and died just as she was finally being brought to the only doctor in the entire district.

Stories like Sessay's, which are among the most difficult to experience and then relive, arguably demand the most public attention and awareness. Addario's series "Maternal Mortality" proves exceptionally emotional while shedding crucial light on global tragedies affecting women, particularly those in vulnerable situations who face disproportionate risks as they bring new life into the world. These images serve as powerful testimony to the ongoing maternal health crisis in many parts of the world.

Over the course of her career, Addario believes that the fundamental rules and ethics of photojournalism have evolved significantly. As she reflects on decisions she might have made differently if given another opportunity, the seasoned photographer says she now trusts herself more to tell stories in the most appropriate and respectful way possible. Respecting her subjects remains of paramount importance to Addario, and what precisely that means has changed as the methods by which photographs are shared and distributed have transformed.

The permanence of digital media has fundamentally altered the landscape of photojournalism. It is no longer the case that a photograph may appear in a newspaper once and then disappear; instead, these images now live online indefinitely. This reality has forced Addario and other photojournalists to consider the long-term implications and potential consequences of their work for the subjects they photograph.

Everything that happens when Addario isn't looking through her camera viewfinder has also changed dramatically throughout her career. She got married and started a family, adding new dimensions of complexity to her already challenging profession. While people rarely ask men how they balance demanding careers with parenting responsibilities, having a family undeniably affects Addario, just as it impacts anyone whose work requires extensive travel to dangerous locations.

"I'm at a point in my career where I've had so many close calls," Addario explained to PetaPixel. "I've now been kidnapped twice. I was thrown out of a car. I've been ambushed. I've lost a lot of friends. I think [I do] a constant sort of calculation of what I'll risk my life for and how far I'll go forward with what I'm willing to do." She continues, "I think having a family adds to that equation. It's scary. As my kids get older and as they get more aware of what I do, that calculation is even more complicated because, of course, I have to answer questions from my 13-year-old."

Addario admits that her work was considerably easier before she had children, and also when her kids were simply too young to understand the nature and dangers of her profession. "LoveWar" includes a particularly poignant scene showing Addario traveling from Ukraine, crossing multiple borders to return to England in time to attend one of her sons' school recitals. This race against time proves as important and urgent as any she undertakes with a camera in hand, illustrating the constant tension between her professional and personal commitments.

"It's a constant negotiation with safety," she describes her approach to her work. After Addario was infamously held hostage and assaulted in Libya in 2011, she faced persistent questions about whether she would quit and abandon her career as a conflict photographer. "It was never a question for me," she states with unwavering resolve. "There was never a world in which I would not do this work."

Instead of considering retirement, Addario focused on developing strategies for how she could continue performing her vital work without getting kidnapped for a third time. "How can I do this without putting my loved ones, my family, through that emotional toll?" she asks. "Because it's very selfish in a way to continue going back, continuing going back when my family is suffering and terrified all the time. So I had to figure out how I would do it."

Addario believes it was around this period that she began shifting her focus more toward human stories and away from the immediate aftermath of warfare. "It was less about chasing the aftermath of bombs and missiles and artillery attacks and more about doing longer term stories on people and the civilian victims of combat," Addario explains. However, she acknowledges that this shift doesn't eliminate risk entirely: "But it's not like anything is a guarantee in war. Everything is dangerous and everything's unpredictable."

The significance of Lynsey Addario's work cannot be overstated, nor can the tremendous personal price she pays to accomplish it. Every time she travels to a dangerous region to document real, human stories that might otherwise never be told, she accepts enormous risks and must navigate dangers that few others face. Her dedication to bearing witness to global conflicts and their human cost has provided the world with invaluable documentation of some of history's most important events.

"I'm so driven. I work all the time, and I have since I was 21," she concludes. "So long as I'm physically and emotionally prepared for a story, I'm going to go for whatever the story I want to tell is at that time. It's important for me, the subject matter." This unwavering commitment to storytelling, despite the personal costs and dangers involved, exemplifies the dedication required of those who document the world's most challenging realities.

"LoveWar" was created by Academy Award-winning filmmakers Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin, bringing their expertise in crafting compelling human stories to Addario's remarkable career. The documentary premiered on November 6 on National Geographic, Disney+, and Hulu, offering viewers an unprecedented look into the life of one of the world's most accomplished and courageous photojournalists. The film serves as both a testament to Addario's extraordinary work and a deeper exploration of what drives someone to repeatedly risk everything in service of bearing witness to humanity's most difficult moments.