A story on my idol as a photographer.
When I was first learning about photography, I chose Annie Leibovitz to be my idol.
"I am more interested in being good than being famous." -Annie Leibovitz
As a photographer, I think this is a very important quote, because in my opinion, you can be a great photographer, but have absolutely no style, and have no artistic way to shoot. I have friends who can take beautiful photos, but they base them off of things and photos they have seen and want to take them the same way. They don't try to stray away and try new things and make that photo their own, they don't have anything to set them apart from everyone else. And that is why I always idolize Annie Leibovitz. She has so much style to her work, solely because she understands that photography is an art, she makes each photo her own and puts her heart into it. And I think that is the most important thing a photographer can do.
Biography
Annie Leibovitz's original name was Anna-Lou Leibovitz. She was born October 2, 1949 in Waterbury, Connecticut. She was known for her dramatic, quirky, and iconic portraits of many celebrities. Her father was in the military, and her mother was a dancer. When Annie enrolled in the San Fransisco Art Institute in 1967 her family was residing in the Philippines. She wanted to become an art teacher. She even said:
"I went to school at the San Francisco Art Institute, thinking I was going to become an art teacher. Within the first six months I was there, I was told that I couldn't be an art teacher unless I became an artist first."
And after taking a night course in photography, she became obsessed with that medium.
In 1970, when she was still a student, she got an offer to shoot for Rolling Stones Magazine to photograph a celebrity we all know about. That celebrity is Mr. John Lennon. And after three years she became the Rolling Stones Magazine Publications chief photographer. She directed her energy to representing the personalities of contemporary rock music.
In 1975, she photographed the Rolling Stones' six-month North American concert tour. She shot several photographs that were widely produced of guitarist Keith Richards, as well as, lead singer Mick Jagger. During that time she got addicted to cocaine, a habit she kicked when she joined the staff of Vanity Fair Magazine.
Her most famous work is considered to be the photos of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, which was published on the cover of Rolling Stone Magazine in January of 1981. That picture was shot mere hours before John Lennon's assassination. The picture is below, and in the picture, the singer-songwriter is nude and wrapped like a fetus around his fully clothed wife.
"I sometimes think of that photograph as 10 years in the making. I met John Lennon and Yoko Ono in New York in the early part of my career. It was 1980, and he had just finished the album Double Fantasy with Yoko. I had seen the cover, which was both of them kissing. And I thought, Oh my gosh. This was the 1980s—romance was a little dead. And I was so moved by that kiss. There was so much in that simple picture of a kiss. So, for the photo I wanted to take, I imagined them somehow together. And it wasn't a stretch to imagine them with their clothes off, because they did it all the time. But what happened at the last minute was that Yoko didn't want to take her clothes off. So, we went ahead with the picture, and it was this very striking picture of Yoko clothed against a naked John. And of course, John was murdered later that afternoon. It's actually an excellent example of how circumstances change a picture. Suddenly, that photograph has a story. You're looking at it and thinking it's their last kiss, or they're saying goodbye. You can make up all sorts of things about it. I think it's amazing when there's a lot of levels to a photograph." -Annie Leibovitz
In 1983, Leibovitz produced a 60-print show that toured Europe and the United States. And the accompanying book to it, Annie Leibovitz: Photographs, was an absolute best seller. And that same year, she joined the staff of Vanity Fair Magazine, which broadened her pool of subjects to include film stars, athletes, and even political figures. For her portraits, she "typically spent days observing her subjects’ daily lives and worked to make her portraits of them unique and witty, each a technically exquisite distillation." And her commercial images were dramatic and staged when she was part of the Vanity Fair staff, rather than casual.
Furthermore, "She also received the American Society of Magazine Photographers award for photographer of the year in 1983. She began to work as an advertising photographer in 1986, gaining clients as Honda, American Express (the “Portraits” campaign), and the Gap (“Individual of Style” campaign). The American Express ad campaign that used her photos won a Clio Award, recognizing advertising excellence worldwide, in 1987. She later was involved in the California Milk Processor Board (the “Got Milk?” campaign) and shot a series of ads featuring celebrities as Disney characters for Disney theme parks. In 2011 she photographed seven top female athletes for the sportswear company Nike's “Make Yourself” campaign. Her style throughout these projects was characterized by carefully staged settings, superb lighting, and her trademark use of vivid color.
In 1991 Leibovitz had her first museum exhibition; she became the first woman and second living photographer to show at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. A companion book, Photographs: Annie Leibovitz 1970–1990, was published in 1991. She also earned much praise for her portraits of American Olympians taken for an exhibit at the 1996 Summer Games in Atlanta, which were later published in the book Olympic Portraits (1996). In 1999 she published a collection of photographs titled Women, with an essay by intellectual and writer Susan Sontag, who was her lover.
In 2000 Leibovitz was among the first group of Americans to be designated a Library of Congress Living Legend. Among the later publications of her work were American Music (2003); A Photographer’s Life: 1990–2005 (2006), which contained many images documenting Leibovitz’s personal life; Annie Leibovitz at Work (2008); and Annie Leibovitz: Portraits 2005–2016 (2017). Leibovitz’s perfectionism in her work (budgets were exploded, and no expense was spared) and her celebrity-touched lifestyle had a role in producing a debt of $24 million, for which she was sued in 2009. The suit against her was settled, and the glare of publicity was deflected somewhat when her official portrait of the first family, President Barack Obama, as well as his wife, Michelle, and their daughters, Sasha and Malia, was released to the public later that year.
The photographer’s achievements were celebrated in Annie Leibovitz: Life Through a Lens (2009), a documentary film made for public television’s American Masters series by her sister Barbara. During her financial difficulties, Leibovitz began working on a personal project, photographing places and objects that were meaningful to her, and the images were collected in the book Pilgrimage (2011)" (Anna-Lou Leibovitz, 2019).
When you have time you should really take a look at some of her work, it is truly art.
References:
Comments