Lynsey Addario has documented almost every war and humanitarian crisis this century has experienced. From Afghanistan to Iraq, from Syria to Libya, Lynsey and her Nikon cameras have traveled the world capturing the horrors of war and, just as important, the inspiring ways its victims survive and preserve their humanity.

On Thursday night at Guilford College’s Bryan Series, Lynsey shared many of those images and the riveting stories behind them with an audience of about 1,100 people at the Steven Tanger Center for the Performing Arts.

“Obviously the conflicts I cover are not pretty, but the stories that come out of them need to be told,” Lynsey shared. “I wouldn’t be putting my life out there if I didn’t believe in the power of photography and its capability of changing the course of a war.”

A two-time, Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist, Lynsey’s work has appeared frequently in The New York Times, National Geographic and TIME Magazine.

The powerful images in her presentation depicted the lives of women under the Taliban’s oppressive rule in Afghanistan, the Iraq war and the fall of Saddam Hussein, the plight of Syrian refugees in Lebanon, the genocide in Darfur and the effects of climate change.

Addario says she feels “compelled” to document the tragedy of war, but she also tries to capture the ways in which life goes on amid the violence as people get married, graduate and celebrate milestones even in the most dismal situations and moments.

She showed pictures of weddings under the Taliban, where people danced, laughed and celebrated together. “One thing I learned early on in my career is that life goes on, and it’s human nature to want entertainment, to laugh and to be together,” she said.

For every image that was hard to view, there were as many images of people celebrating life in the midst of the horrors around them. Lynsey recalled attending a wedding in Afghanistan still under the Taliban’s rule. “I wondered what a wedding could possibly look like in a country where all forms of entertainment were banned,” she said.

She soon found out when she started walking down a flight of stairs and heard the soundtrack for the movie “Titanic” blasting through the house.

All around her men and women were dancing, singing. Women’s faces and hair were fully made up and exposed.

“That day taught me a valuable lesson to always look for these private moments in war and even in the darkest places for fun.”

This season’s Bryan Series is themed “Heroes in our Midst.” In addition to the work of Lynsey, Thursday offered the College the opportunity to lift up several local heroes in the Triad:

• Joyce Johnson, co-Executive Director of the Beloved Community Center of Greensboro and Director of the Jubilee Institute, a community-based leadership
  development and training entity
• Ivan Canada, Executive Director of the North Carolina for Community and Justice
• Christian Matheis, Guilford College faculty member in Community and Justice Studies in the Department of Justice and Policy Studies
• Frank McCain, President and CEO of United Way of Greater Greensboro
• Josie Williams ’16, the former Executive Director of Greensboro Housing Coalition

The Bryan Series continues Feb. 8 with former Shuttle commander and NASA administrator Charles Bolden followed by news anchor Judy Woodruff April 9. Tickets for speakers are on sale at the Tanger Center Box Office (Tuesday - Saturday, noon to 5 pm) and at Ticketmaster.com.