Marie Colvin, who was killed in Syria, was a renowned war reporter for Britain's Sunday Times whose trademark black eye-patch symbolised her commitment to the trade.
US-born but based in London for many years, her 30-year career saw her cover some of the world's bloodiest conflicts, and most recently she reported on the Arab Spring from Tunisia, Egypt and Libya.
In her final powerful reports from the Syrian city of Homs on Wednesday, filed just hours before she died with young freelance French photojournalist Remi Ochlik, she described a two-year-old boy dying of a shrapnel wound.
"I watched a little baby die today. Absolutely horrific," she told BBC television by telephone from Homs.
"His little tummy just kept heaving until he died."
Colvin, who was in her 50s, also spoke to Britain's ITV News and Channel 4 news, and to US news channel CNN on Tuesday to describe the scenes of horror in Homs, which is being shelled by President Bashar al-Assad's forces.
In her final dispatches, Ms Colvin sought to alert the world to the human tragedy unfolding in Homs, a leading focus of unrest in the 11-month uprising against Syrian president Bashar Assad.
She told the BBC yesterday: "No one here can understand how the international community can let this happen, particularly when we have an example of Srebrenica - shelling of a city, lots of investigations by the United Nations after that massacre, lots of vows to never let it happen again."
Describing the situation in Homs as "absolutely sickening", she said: "There's just shells, rockets and tank fire pouring into civilian areas of this city, and it's just unrelenting."
In a front-page article published in the Sunday Times at the weekend, Colvin reported that wounded civilians in the Baba Amr area of Homs were being treated by a vet because no doctors were available.
She wrote: "The scale of human tragedy in the city is immense. The inhabitants are living in terror. Almost every family seems to have suffered the death or injury of a loved one."
Colvin's determination to tell the stories of people caught in conflict had long led her deep into the heart of danger.
Over her distinguished career, Colvin, from Oyster Bay, New York, reported on conflicts around the world, including in Kosovo, Chechnya and Sierra Leone.
She wore a black eyepatch after losing an eye when she was wounded by shrapnel while covering Sri Lanka's civil war in 2001.
Her recent reporting focused on countries caught up in the uprisings of the Arab Spring, among them Tunisia, Egypt and Libya.
Addressing a memorial service in November 2010 for British journalists killed reporting conflicts, Ms Colvin summarised the foreign correspondent's job succinctly.
"Our mission is to report these horrors of war with accuracy and without prejudice," she said.
"We always have to ask ourselves whether the level of risk is worth the story. What is bravery, and what is bravado?
"Journalists covering combat shoulder great responsibilities and face difficult choices. Sometimes they pay the ultimate price."
She added: "It has never been more dangerous to be a war correspondent, because the journalist in the combat zone has become a prime target."
After a two-year stint as Paris bureau chief for the United Press International news agency, she joined the Sunday Times as a Middle East correspondent in 1986.
Tributes poured in on Wednesday from colleagues hailing her bravery and describing her as an inspiration.
At the St Bride's Church in Fleet Street, the so-called "journalists' church" in London, a photograph and short account of both Colvin and Ochlik had already been added to the "shrine" of journalists killed on the job.
Their names now sit along side others such as Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, who was abducted and killed by militants in Pakistan in 2002, and photographer Tim Hetherington, who died in Libya in 2011.
The editor of the Sunday Times paid tribute Colvin, calling her "extraordinary".
Rupert Murdoch, owner of the Sunday Times, described Colvin as "one of the most outstanding foreign correspondents of her generation".
Paul Conroy, a freelance photographer working for the Sunday Times, was also injured in the attack but initial reports suggest he was not seriously hurt, the newspaper said.
Murdoch described Colvin as "one of the most outstanding foreign correspondents of her generation".
The UN estimated last month that at least 5400 people, mostly civilians, have been killed in President Assad's crackdown on the popular uprising.
Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times correspondent Anthony Shadid, 43, died of an asthma attack while reporting from Syria last Thursday.
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