Peter Tobia: "It's About Being A Part of History."

WHAT DID YOU THINK of today's guest, photojournalist Peter Tobia?

Here are a few things that stood out for me:

- He wanted to be a writer. He took a photo course in college and everything clicked (ha!).
- Traveling around the world for stories allowed him to grow personally as well as professionally. By traveling, he learned about the world.
- He says that to be successful, you need to know your craft, be aware of the news of the world, and be tenacious.
- "If you want to be good at something," he says, "you have to put the time in."
- He covered events where upwards of 40,000 people were screaming, "Death to Americans."
- When he saw a woman suffering, he shuttled her to a hospital. Some of his journalism colleagues thought that was not ethical, that journalists should not get involved in stories.
- As a newspaper photojournalist, he has traveled to Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Somalia, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq and Suriname, among other places.
- He photographed the Taliban.
- He says that understanding the local culture is important for journalists.
- Now that he has a four-year old son, he's not sure he would travel to such dangerous places for work again.
- He tries to capture the humanity in war - like the family living on the former military base, where unexploded bombs rest along roadsides.
- He felt an obligation as a journalist to cover the conflicts abroad. It's history, he says, and he wants people to understand.
- What he has seen and experienced has impacted him mentally at times.
- "Those who suffer most are the least involved," he says of citizens living in war-torn areas.