Katie Orlinsky

Visual Storyteller & Contributing Photographer
    
Anja Niedringhaus Courage in Photojournalism Award
Location: North America
Nationality: American
Biography: Katie Orlinsky’s photography tells stories about the everyday lives of people in extreme situations, capturing the intimate moments of daily life behind larger global issues. For the past six years a large portion of her work has focused on... MORE
Private Story
Anja Niedringhaus Courage in Photojournalism Award
Copyright Katie Orlinsky 2024
Updated Mar 2020

As a photojournalist, I am drawn to stories about the everyday lives of people in extreme situations, working to create images that capture the intimate moments of daily life behind larger global issues. I am inspired by the dignity and complexity of the brave people I am fortunate enough to meet through my profession, and compelled to share the beauty I see within their stories. Or as Anja Niedringhaus puts it, “…to report people’s courage with my camera and my heart.”
        My photography career began after graduating college in 2005 when I got my first job as a photojournalist for a local newspaper in Oaxaca, Mexico. For the next few years I free-lanced in my home town New York City so that I could afford working on a long-term project documenting Central American migration in southern Mexico, a subject I have continued to feel passionately about and document throughout my entire career. (An image from the related story “Kidnapped at the Border” is included in my application portfolio).
        Eventually New York City became a “base,” and I photographed news stories and feature assignments all over the world in Mexico, Haiti, Chile, Israel, Palestine, Egypt, Libya, Nepal and Mali. At the same time I continued to pursue long-term personal work by receiving grants and partnering with educational institutions and non-profit organizations. Some of the work I am most proud of includes “Innocence Assassinated,” a five-year project about the ignored innocents of the Mexican drug war. The project investigated the culture of violence, misogyny and systemic poverty that entrenched the drug war into the fabric of Mexican society by focusing on the living victims: orphans, widows, female inmates, “narco-refugees” in border towns, and young people growing up in neighborhoods inundated by drug gang violence. I photographed primarily in Ciudad Juarez, which at its peak of violence was averaging 8 murders per day. Working conditions were often times challenging and stressful. However the risks I faced as a foreign journalist were minimal when compared to the dangers faced by my Mexican journalist colleagues. When the violence in Mexico had became so normalized, and it all just felt too heart breaking, it was the bravery and courage of the men and women of the local Mexican press that gave me the inspiration I needed to finish the project.
        Other major long-term projects of mine created during this time period include “Bought and Sold in Nepal” a collaboration with anti-slavery organizations and The New York Times about sex trafficking in Nepal, “The Women’s War in Mali” produced with support from Johns Hopkins University and Smithsonian Magazine about women during the Jihadist invasion of Northern Mali, and “Children do not Migrate, They Flee” a body of work about the Central American child migration crisis produced in collaboration with Humanity United and exhibited in the lobby of the United States Senate building. (Images from “Innocence Assassinated", "Children do not Migrate They Flee" and “The Women’s War in Mali” are included in my application portfolio.)

        I was on assignment in Misurata, Libya in April, 2011 when five colleagues and I were hit by a mortar explosion. I survived, but photographers Tim Hetherington and my mentor Chris Hondros did not. In the aftermath of Libya, I saw my profession and the toll it takes on others, from local fixers to loved ones, in a different light. I fought cynicism as I grappled with the trauma for years. It took all my strength to hold on to photography during this time period.
         Then in 2014, something happened that helped me move forward towards a life-changing new career focus- a chance assignment documenting a 1,000-mile dog sled race across the Arctic wilderness. Since then I have been dedicated to documenting the real, human stories of our changing planet as part of the long-term photography project “Chasing Winter.” The project explores how climate change is challenging communities across Alaska, and transforming the relationship between people, animals and the land. I now work primarily with National Geographic and just completed “The Carbon Threat,” a multi-year story for their magazine about permafrost thaw in Siberia and Alaska. (The first half of my application portfolio features work from “Chasing Winter” and “The Carbon Threat.”)
         Before my first trip up North I thought the Arctic was somewhere out of reach to me as a photographer, a cold and distant land for rugged men who knew how to survive in the wilderness. I could navigate some of the most dangerous cities in the world, but I had no idea how to pitch a tent. Since then I have learned to be self-sufficient and capable in ways I would have never thought possible. I have photographed hunts for marine mammals and caribou that have lasted days on end in temperatures below -50, pack-rafted along miles of river rapids, drove a snowmobile across the Brooks Range and trekked through coastal backcountry inundated with brown bears.        
         From Mexico to Alaska, my goals as a photographer have always been the same-to stand up for justice, to raise awareness on underreported issues and to foster empathy and understanding through storytelling. Like Anja Niedringhaus, I believe kindness, sensitivity and respect for one’s subjects is paramount, and that the best photography comes when we open our heart and our mind and truly take the time to learn, listen and see.

Also by Katie Orlinsky —

Story [Unlisted]

The Gila Wilderness

Katie Orlinsky
Story [Unlisted]

Vanishing Caribou

Katie Orlinsky
Story [Unlisted]

The Carbon Threat

Katie Orlinsky
Story [Unlisted]

Sailing the Front Line of Climate Change

Katie Orlinsky
Story [Unlisted]

Sailing Along the Front Line of Climate Change

Katie Orlinsky
Story [Unlisted]

Travel & Adventure

Katie Orlinsky
Story [Unlisted]

Tear Sheets

Katie Orlinsky
Story [Unlisted]

Northwest Passage Cruise

Katie Orlinsky
Story [Unlisted]

Climate Change in Alaska

Katie Orlinsky
Anja Niedringhaus Courage in Photojournalism Award  by Katie Orlinsky
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