Nearly 84% of our funding comes from the Atlanta community. Thank you!

In the 42 years since CNN made its debut as the first 24-hour news channel, brave photojournalists on the front lines have covered wars, natural disasters and dynamic changes in politics. “No Ordinary Life,” a new documentary directed by Heather O’Neill, follows five trailblazing camerawomen who filmed dangerous situations in order to bring truth to light. The film will debut on CNN on Labor Day, Sept. 5. Director and filmmaker Heather O’Neill joined “City Lights” host Lois Reitzes via Zoom along with Maria Fleet, one of the photojournalists featured in the documentary. 

Unsung heroes behind significant media moments:

“The first camerawoman I ever met in my entire life was Mary Rogers when I was working in Baghdad in 2006 for CNN,” recalled O’Neill. “I had never met a camerawoman before in my whole career, and I was really kind of blown away by her fierceness and professionalism and just her dedication to her job … Then I began to meet the other women, and it just sort of stuck with me over my career at CNN that, ‘Gosh, this is an untold story.’ The world knows these global events that these women covered, but I don’t know if they know that it was five international trailblazing camera women behind the camera.”

“They really paid attention to the bystanders, the people who are not necessarily on the frontlines — people who were caught up in these really difficult situations,” O’Neill said. “There was a pattern I could see, watching all of their footage; that they really did look outside of the ‘theater of war’ to see what the impact was on people, and it was frequently women and children, and it was just a different sort of approach and care and compassion.”

How camera operators in volatile situations keep their heads on straight:

“When you’re photographing, you are thinking about a million things at once,” Fleet explained. “You’re trying to just technically keep everything together, and frame your shot, and think of the exposure and everything else, and trying to also anticipate what might be happening around you … It’s kind of a balancing act. I think that all of us really, really focused on the individuals and the human beings that were going through a lot of the trauma that we saw them experiencing in war zones, being uprooted and being thrown out of their homes or having to shelter from the bombing. We always kept the individual in our minds.”

“It was important to know that we had other, not just other camera people, but other women that we could lean on to, who knew what we had been through,” said Fleet. “We all had shared experiences of being in these really dangerous situations, and it was kind of comforting to know that there was somebody there that you could talk to, that you could share those experiences with, and who knew what you’d been through.”

Fleet recounts her most frightening moment in the field:

“It was shortly after the U.S. Marines had taken Baghdad, but they had not taken Tikrit yet, and so we were investigating around the area around Tikrit, because that was Saddam [Hussein]’s hometown, and it was thought that he would make his final stand there,” Fleet said. “We deemed it safe enough to go into the town. But when we went into the town, we were surrounded by some gunmen that were in pickup trucks, and we decided to turn around. They chased us out of town, and the gunmen shot up our car.”

She continued, “There were about 12 rounds that came into my car, and I thought, I really thought that we had just made a miscalculation, and that was how it was going to end for me. It was kind of this weird, sobering thought, like, ‘Wow, we, we messed up, and this is how it ends.’ In war zones, you’re always taking calculated risks.”

“No Ordinary Life” will premiere on CNN on Sept. 5 at 10:00 PM. More information is available here.  

WABE’s mission is simple: “Inform, inspire, reflect and empower our greater Atlanta community. ” We do that through the news, information, and entertainment we bring you via radio and TV, on your phone, in your car, on your smart speaker, or online at the new WABE.org—anywhere and everywhere throughout greater Atlanta. And we can only do this with your help. Please consider becoming a member of WABE today.