The Photo That Changed My Life

CINDY CRAWFORD

As the supermodel's new visual memoir, Becoming (Rizzoli), graces the best seller lists, she tells how a single portrait taken in 1982 kicked off her career

FIRST-PERSON

"When I was 16, Roger Legel, a local photographer in my small town of DeKaib, Illinois, asked to photograph me for the college newspaper. I agreed, and he shot this picture at the backyard pool of my high-school boyfriend. I was still a teenager and dreamed of becoming something big—a nuclear physicist or the first woman president, the two biggest jobs I could think of. Doing this first shoot changed my life. The photographer encouraged me to go to Chicago to try to find an agent. At the time, my dad thought modeling was a nice word for prostitution, so my parents were very protective of me. I went to Chicago, ended up signing with Elite, and from there stalled doing catalogue shoots as well as working with Victor Skrebneski—the most important photographer in Chicago. This one photograph opened my eyes to a whole new world and started me down the path of modeling."

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