In 2007, photojournalist Lynsey Addario set out to cover the rise in civilian casualties in Afghanistan for the New York Times Magazine. On her way to the heart of the war—Korengal Valley, known to many as “the valley of death”—she was told by a public affairs officer in Afghanistan that it wasn’t really a place fit for women, using the excuse of ill-equipped sleeping and bathroom facilities.

At the time, she said in a recent discussion with journalist and author Katie Couric at the International Center of Photography’s (ICP) seventh annual Spotlights event, women in the military were not allowed on the front lines, but this rule did not apply to journalists. And so, as she’d done since she was in her twenties, she went, with journalist and friend Elizabeth Rubin, parachuting into the center of danger. Over the next two months, they embedded with U.S. troops; jumped from Black Hawk helicopters in the middle of the night; and walked for a week carrying everything they owned on their backs—into an ambush by the Taliban.

This is but one of the heart-racing stories Addario, a 44-year-old mother and Pulitzer Prize-winning war photographer, shared with Couric last Tuesday at ICP Spotlights, an annual benefit hosted by the International Center of Photography to honor women working in photography, film, and visual arts. This year it celebrated Addario, whose images of conflicts in war-torn countries and of human rights issues across the globe have told some of the most important stories of our time.