Courage acceptance speech - Anja Niedringhaus

Ladies and Gentlemen:

It is a special honor to win an award that celebrates courage. I have won several awards for my pictures but this award celebrates the spirit of our work: being a journalist, a reporter, a photographer.

I’m not here today to tell you my difficulties covering conflicts. The real difficulties and the real courage belong to those who are subjected against their will to conflicts. I do my job simply to report people’s courage with my camera and with my heart.

When I was seven, my grandfather gave me a globe and as much as I looked I couldn’t find my hometown somewhere in Westphalia, Germany. That’s when I realized how big the world is. My real traveling started after finishing high school when I went to India to volunteer in a polio home for three months. I came back and I did freelance work as a writer. Soon I realized I could tell my story far better with my camera than with words. I picked up the camera and started to take pictures.

Then I went for six months to South America during my studies. Coming back I knew what I wanted to do – to report stories from around the world, to see events through my eyes and through a lens that comes from a safe place where the world is mostly in order.

In 1989, the Berlin wall fell. There were many countries that used to be blocked that all of the sudden could be discovered. I finished university and began my work with wire agencies because agencies can reach the whole world.

Then the wars started in the former Yugoslavia and I didn’t hesitate to cover them. I had no idea what war was. I was still half a child, seeing for the first time people dodging mortar rounds or trying to find shelter.

Their courage was the most impressive thing for me. I wanted to continue this work and traveled most of the time to conflict areas. It’s really their courage under difficult circumstances that gives me the energy to continue in this field.

I feel fortunate to have worked on the front lines of all the big conflicts of our era. After 15 years my home has become a bigger place. I enjoy my work and feel lucky that even under the most difficult circumstances, I can show the world a small view of what is going on.

I choose to cover conflicts. That is the difference between my fellow awardees and me here today – they are living and working under pressures day after day, while I can call everything an assignment. I could have stayed out of trouble most of my life but always have been drawn to the people, no matter where, who suffer in difficult situations. My life outside my job is a safe place that many never have the chance to experience.

And my grandfather’s globe keeps turning and I realize that there is always more to report.

Thank you very much.

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