annie leibovitz

Annie Leibovitz was born Anna-Lou Leibovitz on October 2, 1949 in Waterbury, Connecticut. She was one of six children. Her mother, Marilyn Leibovitz, was a dance instructor, and her father, Sam Leibovitz, was a Lieutenant in the Air Force. Due to her father’s involvement in the Air Force, the family moved often. During a posting in the Philippines during the Vietnam War, Leibovitz became interested in photography. The base where the family was stationed had a darkroom, which enabled Leibovitz’s interest to develop into a hobby.

            Upon graduation from high school in the late 1960’s, Leibovitz attended college at the San Francisco Art Institute, where she studied painting. However, while attending the San Francisco Art Institute, she took a class on photography because of her previous hobby. After her first photography class, Annie decided to change her major to photography. During the summer after her sophomore year of college, she left San Francisco to travel with her mother to Japan, where she purchased her first camera. After returning from Japan, Leibovitz enrolled in photography night classes, receiving her first formal training in photography. However, she has said that in college, she was never taught anything about lighting or color photography. Her classes focused only on black and white film. After college, in 1970, Leibovitz briefly lived on an Israeli kibbutz, which is essentially a small Israeli agricultural community, where she further honed her skills. During her time living at the kibbutz, she participated in an archaeological dig at the site of King Solomon’s temple.

            When Leibovitz returned to San Francisco in 1970, she approached the founding editor of then-start-up Rolling Stone magazine, Jann Wenner, and asked for a position. Wenner was impressed with Leibovitz’s portfolio and gave Leibovitz a job as a staff photographer, along with her first assignment: photograph John Lennon. This photograph, a black-and-white portrait of Lennon, became the cover for the January 12, 1971 issue of Rolling Stone. Two year later, in 1973, 23-year-old Leibovitz was promoted to the position of the Rolling Stone’s chief photographer. The next year, the magazine began printing in color. Since Leibovitz had not been taught about lighting and color during her years at the San Francisco Art Institute, she had to teach herself how to work with color. It is possible that her need to self-teach color photography led to her signature use of bold, primary colors. Among her subjects from her time at Rolling Stone were Bob Dylan, Bob Marley, Patti Smith, and other celebrities of the time.

            In 1975, Leibovitz decided to go on tour with the band the Rolling Stones, becoming their official photographer. Rolling Stone magazine editor Jann Wenner encouraged Leibovitz to skip the trip, concerned that the environment of traveling with a rock and roll band would lead Leibovtiz to a lifestyle of partying and drug use, which ended up being a correct prediction. Leibovitz eventually ended up in rehab for her drug use. However, through touring with the band, Leibovitz captured iconic black-and-white photos of Keith Richards and Mick Jagger, in all their 1970’s rock band glory.

            By the time Leibovitz left Rolling Stone magazine ten years later, she had shot 142 covers for the magazine. She was credited with making several Rolling Stone covers collector’s items.

The 1980’s were arguably Leibovitz’s time of best work. In 1980, Leibovitz shot her best-known photograph. Rolling Stone magazine had sent her to photograph John Lennon and wife Yoko Ono. The couple had recently released their album entitled “Double Fantasy” and Rolling Stone wanted a photo of the duo for their cover. Leibovitz intended to photograph the couple nude. While Lennon agreed to disrobe, Ono agreed to remove her top, but refused to remove her pants. Leibovitz was disappointed in the lack of cooperation from Ono and decided to have Ono leave her clothes on. The resulting portrait shows Lennon, nude, curled around Ono’s fully clothed body. Just hours later that day, Lennon was shot dead in front of his apartment in New York City. The photograph did run as a cover of Rolling Stone magazine, but not as a promotional cover for the album. Instead, the magazine devoted the issue as a commemorative issue to John Lennon. The cover is the most collectible cover in the history of Rolling Stone magazine and in 2005 the photo of Lennon and his wife was named the best magazine cover from the past 40 years by the American Society of Magazine Editors.

Her first book, entitled Annie Leibovitz: Photographs, was published in 1983. She also published several more books in the 1980’s. Also in 1983, she began working for Vanity Fair magazine as the magazine’s first contributing photographer. She remains a contributing photographer today. At Vanity Fair, Leibovitz became known for her strangely lit, staged, and often-provocative portraits of celebrities. Most notable among these include a photo of a naked Whoopi Goldberg submerged in a milk bath, a photo of Demi Moore, naked and holding her pregnant belly, and a photo of the late artist Keith Haring, who painted his naked body into one of his canvases for a photo. The cover photo of Moore was named the second best photo from the past 40 years, right after the photo of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, by the American Society of Magazine Editors. Since starting at Vanity Fair, Leibovitz has photographed celebrities such as Brad Pitt, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Ellen DeGeneres, the George W. Bush cabinet, Michael Moore, Madeleine Albright, Bill Clinton, Scarlett Johannson, Keira Knightley, Tom Ford, Nicole Kidman, Suri Cruise, and many, many more.

Annie Leibovitz’s portraits have appeared in publications such as Vogue, The New York Times Magazine, and The New Yorker. She has also worked on advertising campaigns for companies such as American Express, the Gap, the Milk Board’s “Got Milk?” campaign, and Disney. Leibovitz’s work for the American Express “Membership” campaign earned Leibovitz a Clio Award in 1987. Her campaign for Disney incorporated several A-list celebrities posing as characters from popular Disney films. Additionally, she has worked with several arts organizations, such as the American Ballet Theatre, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and the Mark Morris Dance Group.

Leibovitz’s style of photography is fairly easy to identify because it is very different from other photographers’. In her portrait photography, Leibovitz attempts to emphasize and aspect of each subject’s public persona. She generally incorporates the entire body of the subject in her photos, often while the subject is in the midst of some sort of physical action. This effect is achieved without looking fake and often gives the photo a feeling of outrageousness, effectively setting her apart from photographers who take less dramatic, more boring approaches to their photography. Another trademark technique of Leibovitz’s is the use of bold primary colors and bizarre, surprising poses.

Leibovitz has had exhibitions throughout the United States and Europe, including at the National Portrait Gallery and the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, D.C., the International Center of Photography in New York, the Brooklyn Museum, the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, the Centre National de la Photographie in Paris, and the National Portrait Gallery in London. She was honored with a retrospective by the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. in 1991. This retrospective toured the United States, Europe, and Asia. She has received many awards in her years of work, including the American Society of Magazine Photographers Photographer of the Year Award in 1984, the American Society of Magazine Photographers Innovation in Photography Award in 1987, the Clio Award and the Campaign of the Decade Award from Advertising Age magazine in 1987, and the Infinity Award for applied photography from the International Center for Photography in 1990. The Library of Congress has designated Annie Leibovitz a Living Legend. She was also decorated a Commander in the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (Order of Arts and of Letters) by the French government, as recognition of her significant contribution to the arts. These awards make it obvious that Annie Leibovitz is one of the most important and significant portrait photographers of our time.

There is a lot to be learned from someone as accomplished as Annie Leibovitz. Among the most important things I have learned from studying her is to think outside the box. Through her bizarre, often controversial photographs, she inspires amateur photographers to do things differently and set themselves apart.