Catherine Leroy

At a time when women's liberation movements were still in their infancy, Catherine Leroy, a featherweight (1.48 m tall and weighing just over 40 kg) born into a very traditional bourgeois Catholic family, overcame the most resistant taboos in an essentially male professional world. 

She was the first woman and the only civilian photographer to parachute into Vietnam with the US military during the fighting. In 1967, she was the first woman in the United States to be awarded the George Polk prize for ‘daring journalism’ in the news photography category for her report on Hill 881 in Vietnam. 

She was the first woman to receive the Robert Capa Gold Medal, a prestigious American award for ‘the best photographic report requiring exceptional courage and initiative’, for her coverage of the civil war in Lebanon in 1976. 

In the 1960s and 1970s, this intrepid and determined young woman set off around the world to photograph the major conflicts of her time, from Vietnam to the Middle East, via Africa. In February 1966, she left Paris for Saigon via Vientiane, the capital of Laos, with a single ticket, around a hundred dollars and a brand new Leica camera. She was only twenty-one.

She spent three years in the field, covering the Vietnam conflict without fear of exposure, and was seriously wounded in May 1967 in the Con Thien region. In 1968, briefly held hostage in Hué by North Vietnamese soldiers during the Tet offensive, she left with an exclusive report and made the cover of Life. 

Her determination produced powerful images, some of which were published in major international magazines. Sharing the daily life of the American Marines in the heat and mud of the jungle, she produced some extraordinary photographic reports. 

Catherine Leroy paved the way for her colleagues today, who operate in the world's hot spots, from Afghanistan to Syria, from Yemen to Sudan, from Burma to Syria. 

(Source: dotationcatherineleroy.org)