Kate Geraghty

Kate Geraghty (born 1972) is an Australian war photographer, and photojournalist for The Sydney Morning Herald, and The Age and five time Walkley winner.

Career Geraghty started photographing professionally at Albury-Wodonga's The Border Mail in 1997, and photographing sport was formative; on one occasion she counted twenty-seven of her own pictures in one Monday-morning edition, a large number of them pictures of local sporting competitions that typically required her on any Saturday to cover "half a quarter of an AFL match, driving 100 kilometres to make the second half of a hockey match ... you'd cover at least seven games in the one day." When the newspaper refused to send her to East Timor to record the 1999 crisis, she took her holiday there to take photographs that were then published. In 2001 she joined The Sydney Morning Herald, where her first assignment was to cover the 2002 Bali bombings, describing it as "‘one of the most shocking things I’ve ever seen."

Since then, she has provided reportage of the arrest in Jakarta of Amrozi bin Nurhasyim and Samudra, the 2009 Jakarta bombings, the aftereffects of the 2004 tsunami in Aceh, Indonesia, Van Tuong Nguyen's execution in Singapore, and the war in Lebanon. It was the first time she had been assigned to deal "with people who had suffered and who had fled war", learning "how to build trust [with them by] spend[ing] time ... [and] explain[ing] where you're coming from".

Geraghty reports that she shoots with both eyes open; "Well, physically I do. So I don't just see what's in the frame. I can hear I it. I can smell it."

Covering war, she says, has changed her, and she has had to circumnavigate resistance of military officialdom, and even from the Australian Defence Force, to do it. in which she had already twice taken Press Photographer of the Year, Her work has been shown at the King Street Gallery.

Gaza flotilla During the 2010 Gaza flotilla raid, she was on board the MV Samoud, with Paul McGeough. She reports being Tasered by the Israelis. The Israeli attack was: pretty full on....Three of the soldiers on the deck were Australian-Israelis.... I couldn't believe it. It hurt and it made me feel sick.

She photographed the Turkish ferry Mavi Marmara being boarded by Israeli forces and the Challenger One had attempted to outrun the Israeli zodiacs to give her time to transmit her photographs. Australian consular officials met them in Ela prison.

Awards 2006 Nikon Walkley Press Photographer of the Year 2007 Nikon Walkley Press Photographer of the Year 2009 United Nations Association of Australia Media Peace award for photojournalism 2009 Press Photographer of the Year finalist