Images & Words by Christine Spengler
Interview by Maggie Wen, Copy Edited by Kee’nan Haggen
Photo Edited by Maggie Wen & Athena Abdien

How were you inspired to become a war photographer?

By chance, I am a French photographer brought up in Madrid after my parent’s divorce at the age of 7. When I was 24, my younger brother Eric and I traveled to Chad to escape the death of our father, the white snow, and the black crows of Alsace. After one month on the road, the French army locked us up as prisoners because they thought we were spies or journalists helping the Tubu rebirth.

“Please, Eric, lend me one of your cameras,” I said to Eric while crossing the Tibesti desert after being released at Fort Lamy. I captured two Tubu rebirth soldiers holding hands. This was my first photograph to be featured in many newspapers and magazines.

I don’t feel fear, heat, or cold when holding the camera. This was when I realized I wanted to become a war reporter and decided to learn how to do photography on the field.

Ch. Spengler en Iran - 1979 © Sylvaine Julienne.

What’s it like to be a female war photographer?

To be a female war photographer, you must have the same strength as a man with a woman's sensitivity. You could approach women fighters and children more easily. I am also lucky because I have dark hair, and I could blend in to look like an Iran woman.

All the men photographers are married, but no women photographer was married. We were not married because we needed to be free. Even when Robert Capa proposed to Gerda Taro, Taro said no.

What’s it like coming back home from being a war photographer?

I am still a photographer.

From age 7, my aunt and uncle took me to the Museum of Prado twice weekly. I discovered my mentor Francisco De Goya and his dramatic painting there during the Spanish civil war. I was influenced by the work of my mother, Huguette Spengler, a surrealist artist.