My Greatest Shot is a brand-new series from Adobe Photoshop Lightroom and Sky Arts. The series profiles some of Britain’s most innovative photographers, inviting them to reflect on their careers while sharing in-depth stories behind some of their most iconic work.
Text: Vuyokazi Mtukela Photography: Zinc Media / Rob Grieg
Photojournalist Emily Garthwaite has spent seven years journeying through the Middle East and beyond, capturing the lives of those she encounters along the way. From documenting the refugee crisis and the experiences of those living in the ‘Calais Jungle’ to trekking along the Zagros mountains in Western Iran with a family as they transport their livestock across some of the world’s most punishing terrain, her camera offers a special window into a rarely seen world. In all of this, her empathy has been key to her success, sustaining her through uncertain, often physically gruelling work.
“People have mocked my softness,” she says. “I’ve been told that sensitivity isn’t the making of a successful journalist because of the belief that you’re supposed to be detached. You’re not supposed to feel. But if our job as photojournalists is advocating for the lives of others, amplifying community voices and upholding journalistic ethics, then I don’t see why that shouldn’t extend to our daily lives.”
It’s a path Emily embarked on from the beginning. Voyaging to the salt mines of Turda, Transylvania, as part of the 2015 project Beyond the Saltflats, Emily documented elderly “extroverted, loved-up characters” bathing on the mudflats and swimming in the salt quarries. They were uninhibited and unbound by conventions. “It resulted in me unlearning my own inherited biases I’d received from the media,” she says. “That’s something that has stayed with me throughout my work.”
Since then, Emily has continued to focus on aspects of community, healing and women’s liberation. “[My photo] ʻSisters Plaiting Hairʼ is so important because it’s an example of why we need women photojournalists,” she says.
