Commerce / Economics - Celebrity Photographers - Annie Leibovitz

Annie Leibovitz
By Morgan Ondrejka

Annie Leibovitz was born in Westport, Connecticut, in 1949. She received a BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1971. She free-lanced and was the chief photographer for Rolling Stone from 1970 to 1983. She’s been a contributing photographer for Vanity Fair since 1983. She is best known for her portraits of political figures, musicians and athletes. The majority of her photographs are featured in a variety of magazines. Her influences are photographers like Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Frank, and Richard Avedon.

John Lennon and Yoko Ono, 1980

A notable example is her portrait of the nude John Lennon with wife Yoko Ono, which was the last portrait of Lennon before he died in 1980. This image became one of the most famous Rolling Stone covers in part because John Lennon was killed in front of his apartment only a few hours after Leibovitz photographed them. Yoko didn’t want to take her clothes off, so Lennon just wrapped himself around her. The photograph ended up on a cover of January 1981 Rolling Stone magazine and in 2005, it was chosen by the American Society of Magazine Editors as the best cover of the previous 40 years.

Leibovitz shoots numerous celebrities in extremely aesthetically pleasing portraits that are beautiful on their own.

I'm even more drawn to the theatrical work she creates. Here are a few pieces from a body of work for Vogue called "Once Upon A Time in Vogue".

These images are so successful to me because you can immediately see how much detail went into them and the planning they required, though they never seem over done. I’ve always been interesting in creating these “sets” in order to really create a new world for a story so I draw a lot of inspiration from Leibovitz work. Here is a short behind-the-scenes clip of the creation of one of her photographs.

ON GETTING THE SHOT 

“I find that the attention span of subjects is not that long. I think sessions should be short, only a few minutes. I believe that a session should be shorter and I do a lot of work up front, so a subject can come in quickly and be done. Maybe five times a year you find someone you wish you could spend more time with. But the idea that you’re going to get the soul of the sitter in 15 minutes is garbage. Not for what we’re doing for magazines. I do find, and this is something I haven’t really capitalized on, that as soon as I tell them it’s over, they relax and look amazing. I should be starting the shoot then! If there’s another secret that I have, it’s that I’m not afraid to go back. I know that everyone thinks you can’t go back, but you can. You just say, You know, this is great but I have this other idea. I don’t know how many times you go to take a picture in a session and, as you’re leaving it, you think of what you should have done, what you wish you’d done, or you have a better idea. Sometimes if I believe strongly, I’ll go back.”

For her work, can you still engage with the story even though the characters are recognizable faces?