Annie Leibovitz at work.
This book was a very easy read & the format felt relaxed & anecdotal. For me the beauty of it was that it presented me with a lot of questions that I want to go off and find the answers to (some technical and some historical). To be honest, after having read Susan Sontag’s book, the telephone directory would be interesting!
AL cut her teeth working for Rolling Stone magazine which was still quite new when she arrived. Although in the early days of the magazine it was mostly filled with Rock and roll, being run by young people with newspaper backgrounds, it was also about the culture surrounding the music. Inevitably this would lead to having political content too. AL started working for the magazine in 1970 yet (I think with regret) never got to photograph Jimi Hendrix or Janis Joplin both of whom died in the autumn of that first year.
At about the same time as Leibovitz started working for Rolling Stone, Hunter S Thompson appeared on the scene, bringing with him his ‘Gonzo journalism’. Rather than the normal way that of reporting, he went about things in a very different way. It has been described; ‘as an energetic first-person participatory writing style in which the author is a protagonist, and which draws its power from a combination of both social critique and self-satire’. The ‘…. use of sarcasm, humour, exaggeration, and profanity is common’. Professionally, she hung out with him even though he made it clear that he didn’t really want her around. Thompsons style was very informal, hanging out in bars & clubs, ‘just chatting’ with his chosen subject. This was how he worked, almost lulling people into thinking that is exactly what they were doing, ‘just chatting’. In fact though this was how he gathered his information, & having somebody else with him, particularly somebody wielding a camera, just rendered the whole position useless. Nevertheless, she did go on assignment with him, even though he pretty much ignored her & would not talk about the jobs they were working on. This forced her to do a bit of investigation herself, which stood her in good stead for the future.
In those early days it was a steep learning curve which had little to do with the camera /subject. She had to work out how to behave amongst the ‘stars’ & their egos, & also how you worked with (or without) the writers of the pieces that she was photographing. One thing that she says that is interesting, but when you look at similar articles is that, your photo’s don’t have to tie in with what is being written, but if the story is strong, the writer & photographer won’t be too far apart anyway. Something else that she either learnt or just had an instinct for was to not be totally absorbed with the subject in question. A good example of this is the launch of Apollo 17. She quickly realised that the world & his wife would be taking those photo’s, so she concentrated largely on the faces of the spectator, & the looks of awe & wonder. Along the same lines, she would often hang around a little while after the ‘event’ & get some shot that nobody else would as they were long gone. A good example of this is the shot of the carpet being rolled up as Nixon was leaving the White House in the presidential helicopter.
Mick Jagger invited AL to be their tour photographer in 1975, after she had worked with them briefly in 1972, she was following in the footsteps of her idol, Robert Frank. She quickly learnt that when you go on tour it is total immersion, you eat, sleep & live when they do. She goes on to say that her link to reality, the thing that constantly reminded her of who she was & why she was there was her ever-present camera. The sex, drugs & rock & roll could easily pick you up & sweep you off to a place that is difficult to come back from, but the camera was her anchor.
Two hours before he was shot dead by Mark Chapman, John Lennon & Yoko Ono were being photographed by Annie Leibovitz. It was her first important assignment, & her boss Jann Wenner had shown a great amount of trust in her to get the shots of, who at the time, were probably the most famous people in the world. She says, ‘He put me at ease. He was honest, straight forward & cooperative….. John, who was a legendary figure, someone I revered, taught me that I could be myself.’ This set a precedent for all further sessions with celebrities. I think that this applies in all walks of life, be yourself, be true to yourself & people will instinctively be more receptive & honest with you.
In the chapter ‘Conceptual Pictures’ Annie uses a lot of examples to labour the point that if you are going to photograph somebody then homework/research is the key to getting it right. It works on a number of levels. Firstly, I think you probably gain a bit of respect from the subject in question which in turn gets them on your side & subsequently relaxes them. All of this comes through in the final image. not to mention, of course, a wealth of ideas & angles beyond the norm.
In 1986 she was commissioned to do a series of portraits for American Express. The thing that stood out for me is that she finds it hard to frame people in a portrait format. She goes on to say that it doesn’t feel natural & explains that, rightly so, ‘the eye sees horizontally’. In the portrait format, generally you take in a little of what is to the left & right of the sitter, immediately making the image much more formal than shooting in landscape. If you shoot in landscape, then you take in much more detail and ‘is good for telling a story’. I don’t think these facts can be denied, but you are in danger of losing the intensity of the image, diluting the subject matter down. Sure, it’s harder in portrait, but then it is part of the photographers job to come up with the ideas which set you apart from the masses of average photographers that are out there.
Annie did Pirelli calendar for 2000. In the chapter about nudes she talks a lot about the use of light. Talking about lights used to supplement the natural light she says, ‘…. by lights that had recently been designed for use in music videos. They produced very flat light. The flattest light I’d ever used. As the light hit the body it would fall away, creating soft shadows & almost translucent shapes’. I like the sound of this, and would like to look more into it. She goes on to say that this was fine for the bodies (I can imagine it gave them an alabaster look), but was no use for the faces which needed a more direct light (presumably to give definition). It would be interesting to know if/how she overcame this.
I see! 