Rodrigo Abd knows the most extreme nuances of life and death. He is a risky man, a photographer who goes for everything with his camera in hand. A world leader in photojournalism who won the Pulitzer Prize, as part of the Associated Press (AP) team for his coverage of the civil war in Syria in 2012; the World Press in 2013; the María Moors Cabot Columbia University in 2016 and the one from the Gabo Foundation for its coverage of the war in Ukraine in 2022.
Now he has just won the Pulitzer again as part of a team of seven AP photojournalists — including Egyptian photographer Nariman El-Mofty — for their coverage of the war in Ukraine. “It is important to be recognized with such a prestigious award and it has more value because it was a team effort. In a work as individualistic as photography, highlighting a collective work has a double value. In addition, with the award we give more visibility to what continues to happen in Ukraine, so that the disaster of the war continues to be shown in a direct, honest but crude way. And for me it is also important because it had been a long time since I had attended such open and relevant conflicts. This was a return to that type of news and being recognized gives me encouragement and the desire to move on, ”she tells NEWS.
Rodrigo was studying Communication at the UBA, when in ’94 he went backpacking with friends to the north of Argentina, Bolivia, Peru and Chile and, without intending to, became the group’s photographer. “That trip opened up an extraordinary visual world for me, I was amazed by the images that were presented to me and I thought that I could also do journalism with a camera”, he recalls. He worked for the newspapers La Razón and La Nación and has worked for AP since 2003. He covers wars, political and social processes, and tells life stories of the marginalized. After the pandemic he was in Haiti, Honduras, Ukraine, Peru, Rosario, northern Chile and Argentina and in May he plans to return to Afghanistan. The extraordinary images of him speak for themselves.
News: What are the keys to your work?
abd: I am always attentive to the issues that I consider essential where I have to be. In Guatemala, for example, counting a postwar country. In Peru, the depredation of the Amazon jungle. I try to combine the agenda for the day with other important issues, working on them in greater depth and time.
News: His works have a high human, social and political content.
Abd: I have always been interested in political, social and economic processes. I grew up on the streets of Buenos Aires in very dramatic moments in the country and I stayed with that. I later transferred it to Guatemala, Peru, Afghanistan, Mexico, Haiti, Syria, where I had to be, always trying to tell the stories of those excluded from the system.
News: How do you not get emotionally involved in these human dramas?
Abd: It’s impossible not to get involved. Much of the work I do is living with these people for hours and that implies getting involved, listening, walking with them, sleeping in their places. Many times I am invited to their homes, to their privacy. Those people at the extremes of society appreciate that there is a reporter who wants to tell his story. When that connection manifests itself, I end up being a member of the families. Sometimes it is difficult because there is a lot of mistrust towards the media, some topics are very controversial, there is a lot of prejudice towards those who come from outside, or I don’t have enough time. In the case of fishermen from Lake Maracaibo in Venezuela, I decided to stay in their homes. By living with them I can also help them, buying food, for example, and also, they open up in a different way and tell me their stories in a much deeper way.
News: It is a job that requires adaptation, flexibility and courage as well.
abd: Very strong relationships are created, but then they disappear, because after a short time I am in another place building another relationship that is just as strong and so on. Throughout the years I have had many diverse experiences, I have known places, cultures, histories, but it is difficult for me to have continuity and deepen them. I admire the work of photographers who spend five years with the same subject.
News: It must also require a lot of empathy on your part.
abd: Yes, I really want to put myself in the shoes of the other and understand without judging. Being able to understand why an illiterate 18-19 year old boy in Central America becomes a gang member and murderer. Or enter the Peruvian Amazon jungle, see thousands of hectares deforested by mining, and try to understand the miner who works there because he has to feed his family and wants his children to study. I don’t look at it from my place.
News: You have to put your principles aside.
abd: It is very difficult for someone who does not experience that, who is not there, to understand what could happen to someone in those situations. It changes your whole perspective. That’s why field work caught me. You can’t do photojournalism at home with a computer. But I also believe that photojournalists lack training, we have to study and read a lot to understand and enrich ourselves and be able to apply it later at work.
News: In what situations would you lower the camera and not take a photo?
Abd: When someone or a group tells me that I can’t take photos, for whatever reason, I try to explain to them what I’m doing. If there is no type of negotiation and they keep saying no to the photo, then I lower the camera and I don’t take it. I don’t try to take photos on the sly, to get on a roof so they don’t see me, to put a telephoto lens on the sly. I have never done it and I will not do it. It’s unethical, and besides, the people I photograph are already too hurt to add another problem to it. On the other hand, in some situations, even though they have said yes to the photo, I explain to them what the consequences of being photographed may be and if they still accept, I only take the photo then.
News: How do you manage to overcome fear?
Abd: I always had the feeling that nothing was going to happen to me. But that does not mean that fear wins one hundred percent. There is always a share of fear that is necessary. We are all exposed and things have happened to the best photographers and to me too.
News: What happened?
abd: At the opening of the World Cup in Brazil in 2014, in São Paulo, a group of activists who were protesting against it wanted to block an avenue and the military police entered to repress it with everything. While photographing in the gases, I received several rubber bullets and I still have holes in my legs from a bomb that exploded next to me. I couldn’t cover the World Cup for ten days because I couldn’t walk. Later I was in combat situations, afraid behind a wall, listening to the shots. I was hit by the police, by the demonstrators, by stones. In Venezuela I was detained by the police.
News: What was the most extreme situation?
abd: Syria in 2012 was very extreme. We were covering the civil war on the side of the rebels, the Syrian Liberation Army, and the official army was advancing, taking the neighborhoods where we were. The rebels were ready to die in their town and we wanted to leave and we didn’t know which way because we didn’t know how far the city was besieged. One night we slept in a field hospital, wounded and dead arrived, the doctors did what they could, the rebels cried with their rifles for their dead, it was very dramatic. Luckily, we were able to get out through a tunnel, we walked all night to a place controlled by the rebels and from there we went to Turkey.
News: And you are very risky? Does it go to the end?
Abd: I was always very risky in general. Now I’m a little more cautious. I’m older, I have a daughter, Victoria (9), and I’m not so interested in action or war photography anymore. I am interested in being able to tell the stories from other angles, delve into it in another way, more reflective.
News: What do you think of death?
abd: I have always been struck by the relationship they have in Central America with death. Going to the cemetery on November 1, dancing next to the graves, getting drunk, singing, having the boys present, flying kites because they connect the dead with the living. I find it so interesting. Here we have a distant relationship with death, we should have a more affectionate, kinder relationship. That there are songs and that we eat and celebrate with the dead, I think it would take away a bit of weight and fear as well.
News: How does your job impact your personal and family life?
abd: A lot. With my wife, Lorena, we met in the newspaper La Razón in ’99. We moved together to Guatemala, to Peru, somehow we got along, but with our daughter it’s different. Many times when I leave she cries, she is sad, she misses me or she tells her friends that her father is going to war. For her it is a process of adaptation and we want her to also know and understand the reason for my work. My family accompanies me, but obviously there is an impact from my work.
News: What was the coverage that impacted you the most?
abd: That of Syria was essential. I went to the place from where my grandparents left to get to Banfield and Rosario. In my family, the memory of grandparents, Arabic food, language, coffee, was always present. When I went to Syria, that struck me deeply. Also, it was a very dramatic note. Then came the Pulitzer for that work. My daughter was born. Life, death, ancestors, the fear of my family because I was there. The most important thing in my notes is the people I learned from and who helped me do this job.
News: What did he learn?
abd: The ability of the human being to survive in very extreme situations, solidarity at times when one believes that everything is destroyed, resistance, the strength of immigrants. In war I was able to see the greatest cruelty, but also the most absolute goodness that can save your life. All that energy translates into almost every note I’ve been played.
