One-way ticket to Viêtnam (1966-1968)

First woman to receive the Robert Capa Gold Medal, which rewards a reporter for courage and independence, Catherine Leroy was one of the few women photographers to cover the war in Vietnam between 1966 and 1968. She was just twenty-one when she flew to Saigon on a one-way ticket, with only a Leica camera and a hundred dollars in her luggage. The young woman quickly made friends with the American soldiers and shared their daily lives-;they belonged to the same generation. For three years, she covered the conflict as close to the action as possible. She followed the patrols on their missions, sharing their rations and improvised beds. Her tight framing and close proximity to the Marines capture faces and bodies caught in the turmoil of gunfire. In the heat and mud of the Vietnamese jungle, Catherine Leroy captures moments of courage, fear and tension, but also the friendship, solidarity and distress of young men struck down by the violence of the terrain. Her lens takes the lightning spe