Lynsey Addario

And I'm trying to capture emotion and evoke emotion.

So I think I hope that sort of gives some of the parameters, of course, while telling a story.

Sure.

So it was March 6th, very early on in the war.

It was a few weeks after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

And

One of the things, of course, I have to do as a conflict photographer is go in and try to cover as many different elements of a story that I possibly can.

And so people fleeing from missile strikes, from mortar attacks is something that I'm often looking for because it shows the urgency and the impact on civilians.

And so I went to the Irpin Bridge.

It's a bridge that separated the suburbs of Irpin and Bucha from Kyiv.

And the bridge had been intentionally broken by the Ukrainian military in order to stop and slow the Russian advance.

And so civilians who were fleeing from that area that was essentially not under siege, but it was definitely the Russian positions were getting closer and closer.

And there was a lot of fighting in Bucha and Irpin.

And so more and more civilians were trying to evacuate.

And so I went early one Sunday morning and was photographing people fleeing and carrying whatever they could on their backs.

And a mortar round came in.

And it came in a little bit off in the distance, the first one.

And we dove for cover.

We were sort of behind this cement wall.

And when we popped up again, another round came in and it came in a bit closer.