Heidi Levine is an award-winning American freelance photojournalist who has been covering the war in Ukraine on assignment for The Washington Post. Since the start of Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Levine has worked closely with her Washington Post colleagues in numerous reporting teams, documenting breaking news, Russia's war crimes against humanity, the battlefield, and the war's brutal impact on the lives of civilians, the country's infrastructure, and the immeasurable power of resilience of the Ukrainian people. Levine has been a professional photojournalist since 1983, starting as a staffer with the Associated Press in Israel, and is currently also represented by the French photo agency, Sipa Press. Over the course of her photojournalism career, Levine has covered the most critical moments in the Middle East, including the Gulf War Crisis, the Arab Spring in Egypt, the civil wars in Libya and Syria, the Israel Lebanon war, the Russo Georgia War, female feticide in India, the migration crisis in Europe, the Iraqi and Syrian refugee crisis, women in Afghanistan, and the Covid-19 pandemic. A mother of three children, Levine has spent nearly four decades intimately focusing her lenses on the Israeli Palestinian conflict, often weaving in and out of both sides in a single day. She has brought frontline action and behind-the-scenes human stories to the world's major press outlets, including The Washington Post, The New York Times, Stern, National Geographic, Paris Match, L'Express, Newsweek, Time, The New York Times Magazine, The Sunday Times Magazine, Forbes Magazine, and The Globe and Mail, among others. Levine has won numerous awards for her photographs of conflicts, including two Emmy nominations. In 2015, the International Women's Media Foundation awarded Levine as the inaugural winner of The Anja Niedringhaus Courage in Photojournalism Award for her documentation of the war between Israel and the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip during the summer of 2014. She has also won multiple awards from Bayeux-Calvados award for war correspondents, UNICEF Picture Of the Year, NPPA, and more. In 2022, she was awarded The Ben Bradlee Courage in Journalism Award by The Washington Post. Other notable awards include the Pictures of the Year (POY) Award of Excellence, the Local Testimony - First prize Breaking News "Violence in Lod," and the Canadian Online Publishing Awards Silver Award for "Inside Hamas" video/multimedia feature category. Heidi Levine's dedication to photojournalism and her ability to capture the essence of conflicts and their impact on people's lives have earned her widespread recognition and accolades from the industry.
IWMF Awards
- Anja Niedringhaus Courage In Photojournalism Award Awardee, 2015
- Courage in Journalism Awards , 2023