Annie Leibovitz

[pieter]

I bought 2 expensive and thick photobooks of Annie Leibovitz . I love this photographer, because she is a people photographer, who photographs life. Especially today life and vibrancy is imporant to me. And these elements are in her work.

[pieter]

These celebraties to me are just people like you folks. Annie Leibovitz photo's make them the humans they are. Great images.



I have this book in my collection

[pieter]

[pieter]

Annie Leibovitz



Anna-Lou "Annie" Leibovitz (born October 2, 1949) is an American portrait photographer. She is best known for her engaging portraits—particularly of celebrities—which often feature subjects in intimate settings and poses. She photographed John Lennon on the day he was murdered, and her work has been used on numerous album covers and magazines. She became the first woman to hold an exhibition at Washington's National Portrait Gallery in 1991.

Early life


A young Annie Leibovitz with a single-lens reflex camera (SLR)

Born in Waterbury, Connecticut, on October 2, 1949, Anna-Lou Leibovitz is the third of six children of Marilyn Edith (née Heit) and Samuel Leibovitz. She is a third-generation American; her father's parents were Romanian Jews. Her mother was a modern dance instructor of Estonian-Jewish heritage. Her father was a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Air Force. The family moved frequently with her father's duty assignments, and she took her first pictures when he was stationed in the Philippines during the Vietnam War. She took photographs around the military base and of nearby locals. Leibovitz's passion for art was born out of her mother's engagement with dance, music, and painting.

At Northwood High School in Silver Spring, Maryland, she became interested in various artistic endeavors and began to write and play music.

Education

Leibovitz attended the San Francisco Art Institute, where she studied painting with the intention of becoming an art teacher. At school, she had her first photography workshop and changed her major to photography. She was inspired by the work of Robert Frank and Henri Cartier-Bresson. For several years, she continued to develop her photography skills while holding various jobs, including a stint on a kibbutz in Amir, Israel, for several months in 1969.



I (Pieter) have this book of Robert Frank too. I love that black and white book about America.


Career

Rolling Stone


Stevie Nicks Rolling Stone Photo Shoot by Annie Leibovitz 1981

When Leibovitz returned to the United States in 1970, she started her career as staff photographer, working for Rolling Stone magazine. In 1973, publisher Jann Wenner named Leibovitz chief photographer of Rolling Stone, a job she would hold for 10 years. Leibovitz worked for the magazine until 1983, and her intimate photographs of celebrities helped define the Rolling Stone look.

While working for Rolling Stone, Leibovitz learned that she could work for magazines and still create personal work of her family which for her was the most important. “You don’t get the opportunity to do this kind of intimate work except with the people you love, the people who will put up with you. They’re the people who open their hearts and souls and lives to you. You must take care of them.”

She was awarded The Royal Photographic Society's Centenary Medal and Honorary Fellowship (HonFRPS) in recognition of a sustained, significant contribution to the art of photography in 2009.

The Rolling Stones


The Rolling Stones, Philadelphia, 1975. Photograph © Annie Leibovitz. From ‘Annie Leibovitz At Work

Leibovitz photographed the Rolling Stones in San Francisco in 1971 and 1972, and served as the concert-tour photographer for the Rolling Stones' Tour of the Americas '75. Her favorite photo from the tour was a photo of Mick Jagger in an elevator.





John Lennon


Annie Leibovitz's portrait of John Lennon and Yoko Ono a few hours before Lennon's murder.

On December 8, 1980, Leibovitz had a photo shoot with John Lennon for Rolling Stone, and she promised him he would make the cover. She had initially tried to get a picture with just Lennon alone, as Rolling Stone wanted, but Lennon insisted that both he and Yoko Ono be on the cover. Leibovitz then tried to re-create something like the kissing scene from the couple's Double Fantasy 1980 album cover, a picture Leibovitz loved, and she had John remove his clothes and curl up next to Yoko on the floor.


John Lennon by Annie Leibovitz
bromide print, 1970
12 in. x 8 1/4 in. (305 mm x 210 mm) uneven
Given by the photographer, Annie Leibovitz, 1995
Primary Collection
NPG P627

Leibovitz recalls, "What is interesting is she said she'd take her top off and I said, 'Leave everything on'‍ —‌ not really preconceiving the picture at all. Then he curled up next to her and it was very, very strong. You couldn't help but feel that he was cold and he looked like he was clinging on to her. I think it was amazing to look at the first Polaroid and they were both very excited. John said, 'You've captured our relationship exactly. Promise me it'll be on the cover.' I looked him in the eye and we shook on it." Leibovitz was the last person to professionally photograph Lennon‍ —‌ he was shot and killed five hours later.

A month or so later the Rolling Stone Magazine gave the grieving music fans his “last image”.

The photograph was subsequently re-created in 2009 by John and Yoko's son Sean Lennon, posing with his girlfriend Charlotte Kemp Muhl, with male/female roles reversed (Sean clothed, Kemp naked), and by Henry Bond and Sam Taylor-Wood in their YBA pastiche October 26, 1993.


Sean Lennon with his girlfriend Charlotte Kemp Muhl


Other projects

- In the 1980s, Leibovitz's new style of lighting and use of bold colors and poses got her a position with Vanity Fair magazine.
- Leibovitz photographed celebrities for an international advertising campaign for American Express charge cards, which won a Clio award in 1987.
- In 1991, Leibovitz mounted an exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery. She was the second living portraitist and first woman to show there.
- In 1991, Leibovitz had been made Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government.
- Also in 1991, Leibovitz emulated Margaret Bourke-White's feat by mounting one of the eagle gargoyles on the 61st floor of the Chrysler Building in Manhattan, where she photographed the dancer David Parsons cavorting on another eagle gargoyle. Noted Life photographer and picture editor John Loengard made a gripping photo of Leibovitz at the climax of her danger. (Loengard was photographing Leibovitz for The New York Times that day.)
- In 2007, a major retrospective of Leibovitz's work was held at the Brooklyn Museum, The retrospective was based on her book, Annie Leibovitz: A Photographer's Life, 1990–2005 and included many of her professional (celebrity) photographs as well as numerous personal photographs of her family, children, and partner Susan Sontag. This show, which was expanded to include three of the official portraits of Queen Elizabeth II, then went on the road for seven stops. It was on display at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., from October 2007 to January 2008 and at the Palace of the Legion of Honor in San Francisco from March 2008 to May 2008. In February 2009, the exhibition was moved to Berlin, Germany. The show included 200 photographs. At the exhibition, Leibovitz showed that she doesn't have two lives, career and personal, but has one wherein assignments and personal pictures are all part of her works. This exhibition and her talk focused on her personal photographs and life.
In 2007, the BBC misrepresented Leibovitz's portrait shooting of Queen Elizabeth II, to take the Queen's official picture for her state visit to Virginia. This was filmed for the BBC documentary A Year with the Queen. A promotional trailer for the film showed the Queen reacting angrily to Leibovitz's suggestion ("less dressy") that she remove her tiara, then a scene of the Queen walking down a corridor, telling an aide "I'm not changing anything. I've had enough dressing like this, thank you very much." The BBC later apologized and admitted that the sequence of events had been misrepresented, as the Queen was in fact walking to the sitting in the second scene. This led to a BBC scandal and a shake-up of ethics training. However a 2015 London Times article contradicts this story. It stated that the Queen was both incredulous at being asked to remove her crown as "no-one tells her what to do" and insulted as the item was only a tiara.
In 2007, The Walt Disney Company hired her to do a series of photographs with celebrities in various roles and scenes for the Walt Disney Parks and Resorts "Year of a Million Dreams" campaign.
- On April 25, 2008, Entertainment Tonight reported that 15-year-old Miley Cyrus had posed topless for a photo shoot with Vanity Fair. The photograph and subsequently released behind-the-scenes photographs show Cyrus topless, her bare back exposed but her front covered with a bedsheet. The photo was taken by Leibovitz. The full photograph was published with an accompanying story on The New York Times' website on April 27, 2008. On April 29, 2008, The New York Times clarified: though the pictures left an impression that she was bare-breasted, Cyrus was wrapped in a bedsheet and was actually not topless. Some parents expressed outrage at the nature of the photograph, which a Disney spokesperson described as "a situation [that] was created to deliberately manipulate a 15-year-old in order to sell magazines".
In response to the Internet circulation of the photo and ensuing media attention, Cyrus released a statement of apology on April 27:

I took part in a photo shoot that was supposed to be 'artistic' and now, seeing the photographs and reading the story, I feel so embarrassed. I never intended for any of this to happen and I apologize to my fans who I care so deeply about.

Leibovitz also released a statement saying:

I'm sorry that my portrait of Miley has been misinterpreted... The photograph is a simple, classic portrait, shot with very little makeup, and I think it is very beautiful.

- In 2011, Leibovitz was nominated alongside Singaporean photographer Dominic Khoo and Wing Shya for Asia Pacific Photographer of the Year.
- In October 2011, Leibovitz had an exhibit in Moscow. In an interview with Rossiya 24, she explained her photography style.
- In 2014, Leibovtiz did a shoot of Kim Kardashian West, Kanye West, and their daughter North West for an article in Vanity fair.
- In the same year, the New-York Historical Society mounted an exhibit of Leibovitz's work, based on her 2011 book, Pilgrimages.
- January 2016 to February 2017, WOMEN: New Portraits, commissioned by UBS and reflecting the changing roles of women, shown in 10 cities worldwide.
- In 2017, Leibovitz announced the release of an online photography class entitled "Annie Leibovitz Teaches Photography".
- In January 2018, Leibovitz's cover photo for Vanity Fair was criticized online for image manipulation that appeared to show actress Reese Witherspoon with three legs.
- February–April, 2019: “Annie Leibovitz. The Early Years, 1970-1983: Archive Project No. 1” at Hauser & Wirth Gallery, Los Angeles

For many years Leibovitz camera of choice was a professional medium format single-lens reflex system camera Mamiya RZ67.



RZ67 is a modular camera system, meaning lenses, viewfinders, ground glasses, film winders and film backs are all interchangeable. It is primarily designed for studio use, but can also be used in the field. The RZ67 Sekor lenses have built-in electronic leaf shutters which are cocked and triggered from the body. Focusing is performed with a bellows on the body instead of the lenses.

The camera accepts 6×7, 6×6 and 6×4.5, 120 and 220 film magazines and Polaroid as well as Quadra 72 4×5 sheet film backs.

[pieter]

[pieter]

This is the world of my friends photographers. I like to take images, but don't consider myself to be a photographer. I do to many things besides that. Real photographers are specialists, photography diehards who know everything about photography and do anything for their perfect shoot. I am a generalist. Photography is one of the mediums I use next to video, texts and other tools. I envy friends who are real photographers. Eventhough they suffer surviving in this world as good photographers. But I envy them. I spend a lot of time in the studios of these friends, evenings and free afternoons discussing photography, art and exhibitions and went to many photography exhibtions. FOAM, Huis Marseille in Amsterdam and the Rotterdam and The Hague photography museums are some of my favorite cultural places to go. I love photography and hope that I know what is good photography and what are good photographers. I read On Photography, a 1977 collection of essays by Susan Sontag. It originally appeared as a series of essays in the New York Review of Books between 1973 and 1977.

I loved the International Center of Photography, in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, New York City, in the 79 Essex Street, when I was in New York city in June 2008.




International Center of Photography in the 79 Essex St. New York, NY 10002, USA

[Jaga]

Annie Leibovitz is a great artist and she can be provocative. Good selection!