It's What I Do: A Photographer's Life of Love and War

by Lynsey Addario

Gul Agha after iftar dinner with supporters.

The New York Times Magazine assigned me to work with Elizabeth Rubin in northern Iraq, the Kurdish region that was opposed to Saddam and supportive of the American intervention. I was to meet Elizabeth in Iran—a country not particularly friendly to Americans at the time, but that did allow journalists to cross the border into Iraq. We would arrive some weeks before the invasion and stay to document the aftermath. In 2003 editorial budgets were healthy. Editors didn’t think twice about putting me on assignment for a month or two at a time, at a rate of $400 per day, just to make sure I was available and in position as a story evolved. Those days are over.