Lindsay Addario

It was like early evening.

There were all these New York bouncers.

There was a perimeter around the set.

And of course, I talked my way on.

I was like,

If you let me in, I'm going to be famous one day.

I'm going to be a famous photographer.

The guys were like, OK, you're so pathetic.

We're just going to let you inside and good luck.

And so I went on to the press riser and I raised my little camera to my eye and I only had a 50 millimeter lens.

And of course, Madonna was like miles away.

And so I must have looked so exasperated because this guy, one of the journalists, one of the photographers on the press riser had like a 600 millimeter lens.

You know, it was on a tripod.

It looked like a Hubble telescope essentially.

And he looked at me and he goes, hey, kid, put your camera back on my lens and you could take a photo.

And I was so green.

I knew so little about photography that I didn't even realize I can put my Nikon camera back on the back of his giant lens.

And so he helped me and I did it.

And I ran back to the newsroom and I ended up getting the picture on the front page.

And it was a horrible picture, but I got a job.