I'm incredibly focused. I think it's a blessing and a curse. I'm so driven that nothing else can stand in my way. For many years, I didn't have a personal life.

When I read about women living under the Taliban, I really wanted to travel there and see for myself: Is it that bad? What is the situation? I remember the night before I left for my trip, I called my mom and said, I'm going to Afghanistan tomorrow.

There are ways to minimize the risk if you are a woman working in the Middle East: You can dress modestly, wear the hijab, cover your head, always travel with a man.

I've worked for over 11 years in the Muslim world, and the one thing that I feel like I've learned - who's to say if it's true or not true, it's just my experience - is that men don't like to see really strong, aggressive women in that area of the world.

In a place like Afghanistan where the society is completely segregated, women have access to women. Men cannot always photograph women and cannot get the access that I get.

I found that the camera was a comforting companion. It opened up new worlds, and gave me access to people's most intimate moments. I discovered the privilege of seeing life in all its complexity, the thrill of learning something new every day. When I was behind a camera, it was the only place in the world I wanted to be.

The goal for me is to pull in the reader and to have them ask questions.

I hope that my work helps people - that's the thing that drives me and keeps me going.

I was assigned a Taliban minder who followed me everywhere. But he couldn't follow me into homes where there were women, so I took photos inside people's homes.

Mortars and artillery don't discriminate against gender.

If women are all of a sudden complaining all the time about getting sent to Pakistan, then if I were an editor, I probably wouldn't send a woman.

Journalists dedicate their lives to covering war - they make many personal sacrifices, and it's not something that's gender-based. In a place like Libya where there's heavy fighting, it doesn't matter if you're a man or a woman.