Annie Leibovitz.

Annie Leibovitz' work is mainly commercial, and she is a freelance photographer, which means that she has no boss.

She is constantly taking photographs of people and everything. Her life is her subject of work. Annie said herself that a photographer’s life is'' a life looking through a lens''

She started off as a art student who went to the San Francisco Art institute and became a painter, but then with her purchase of her first ever camera which was a SRT101 - Minolta she quickly fell in love with photography and pursued her career. She would take photographs in the day, and then enter the darkroom to develop them and then print them off.

Annie Leibovitz was greatly inspired by the likes of Robert Frank and Cartier Bresson. She was inspired by them and motivated completely by learning about them. This made her think that she would be able to travel around the world for a meaningful purpose.

Her main photography subject is fashion and portraiture photography, and never says no to a job which means that she has a good work ethic.

The photo shoots she mangers in her life are high maintenance shoots; she also has 3 children and travels around the world to accomplish these assignments. She manages a big tam which consists of light assistants, makeup and designers. She is most aware of the lighting what goes on in the room for example when she went to the monarch to take photos of Her Royal Highness she walked into the room and described the room with all the windows bringing in these rays of light which she portrayed in the final images she took.



Annie mentioned that she wanted to create a book which would include her commercial photography and her own family photography; the family mentioned that she would take the camera anywhere she would go so they would class it as a family member. Photography was her life.

Annie has worked with a numerous amount of celebrities which include political people, celebrities, actors, and her own family. She has been called daring for the work that she has done and accomplished throughout her photography career. Some of her chosen photographs were documentaries which would include political spokesmen.

Annie now works with a team and doesn’t work alone as such when doing these technical shoots; Her first job when she was still CURRENTLY being a student was to work for the Rolling Stones Magazine, in the late 1960's and pursued working for them until 1983. Whilst working for the Rolling Stones magazine people had noticed that she had an intricate imagination, creating images in her mind which would then bounce off into the shoot and be realistic.

 

The people she worked with in the magazine influenced and inspired her massively to move on into the future. She earned herself opportunities because of her work ethics, also enthusiasm which proved right when she had taken the current high standard pictures of the all time rock band 'The Beatles'.

Annie would say ''You need to be aware of what is around you at the time, you have to be familiar with the surroundings, you have to become what you want to become and take pictures with ease'', she worked with many writers and many different professional artists. She got on well with the people she worked with and also took photographs of, which meant she felt like she was more comfortable and felt part of the group.

Years ago photographers used to get on with their subjects or clients extremely well and that Annie would speak to them every day or every two days, and she was one of her kind to start this off. Because of this they would enjoy Annie taking their photos and would definitely say yes to her taking their pictures whenever she wants.

Annie had a love for dance, on numerous occasions she would take photographs of dancers, there was one particular friend who did ballet and she would sit on the floor whilst he expressed himself whilst doing different movements. Even though she enjoyed her work she would have to be c careful into not interacting with celebrities lives as some of it contained drugs. Annie then had to go to rehab for a while because she was constantly around drugs and had to start a new direction in her life.

Annie then went on to move to New York where famous photographer Richard Avedon worked, she was wary about doing work similar to his even though he specialised in photography doing white backgrounds. Annie had struggled in choosing which pictures to have and also her final pictures. Whilst choosing her pictures Annie Leibovitz started moving onto portraits more and getting the clients more involved with their own images. She wanted to bring in more of a story about the client she was photographing, or as she would call them ''story portraits'' or ''one liners''. These would be deeply connected to the model.


After she left rehab she started to work for Vanity Affair, a high maintenance mainstream magazine,

This was the time where Annie Leibovitz had never worked so hard, you could she worked hard in her shoots because she would want the most extreme ideas in the vast of places, and it would automatically work. She would make her models work hard unlike other photographers where she would push them to their limits. Similar to her sister saying Annie was very demanding.

With the magazine she worked with now she said that her real pictures were inside the magazine and only the front cover photos would sell it. She became friends with many famous people, such as writer, Susan Sontag a writer who wrote 'On Photography' and also Tina Brawn, Tina helped her mixed pictures and was an editor who helped chose her photos for vanity affair magazine.

She started taking photos of the Vietnam War which her father was included in, then she was put down to earth realising by the time she was 40/50 years old she hadn’t had children so the thought that was the time and became pregnant.

In conclusion Annie Leibovitz has worked with many celebrity clients for longer than anybody else, and the best thing about about her photographs is that even with the make up on and the costume and back setting, she still makes them look human.