I'm most proud of maintaining my sense of identity, you know, because I had a lot of success, and the whole whirlwind sort of happened during very formative years for me,

Just the fact I have kept going. I'd say I am very hard on myself and I like it that way. It keeps me on my toes, it keeps me grounded, it keeps me focused and wanting to improve. Just the fact I have kept on going.

I’m proud of all my heritages, and I’m delighted that I have been able to learn from many different experiences.

Yes, I am proud of them all. Our main product at DNI is people who we teach and train to do research.

My parents also said, “Don’t follow money. Follow your heart and you’ll be successful.” That’s all they told me and my sisters.

So it affects my work in the sense that now I’ve been kidnapped twice. So now when I’m working in a place like Iraq — even if it’s northern Iraq and someone who hasn’t survived those two things would just drive on these roads and say, like, “Oh, this is great” — but of course, for me, all I see is ISIS around every corner. Or I envision the road filling up with insurgents because I’ve seen that, and I’ve been in that situation. So it affects my work in that sense, that I’m more paranoid than I ever was, certainly than I was in my 20s.

For a photographer — it’s like actually taking a picture is like five percent of what I do. And the rest is research, reading, contact, setting things up, making contact, getting access, making people feel comfortable, doing the reporting, doing the interviews, getting the captions. It’s not getting there physically, the logistics on the ground. I mean, literally, taking a picture is the easiest part of my job.

I think I naturally felt like I needed to pull back, and maybe that’s one of the reasons why I decided to get pregnant then because I was 37, and I had Lukas at 38. So I have not been covering combat recently. I haven’t covered combat in a few years. I’ve been in South Sudan. I’ve been under fire. But I’m not like — it’s a very different time, also, in history. … Now I feel like I was very torn about not being in Mosul, but I didn’t go because I felt like it was extremely dangerous, and I just couldn’t do that to my family.