My Portrait Photographer : Annie Leibovitz

While researching for a good photographer on a internet I'v remind myself about one specific photographer I have personally met at National Portrait Gallery in London back in 2013 while I was on my trip around Art museums in the capital. Her name is Anna-Lou "Annie" Leibovitz, was born in America in 1949 and took a photography classes at Sant Francisco Art Institution and her first famous cover magazine was revealed in 1970 on a RollingStone's magazine and 1973 she became Rolling Stone's chief photographer. Within 10 years time she have done about 142 magazine covers around the globe and few years later she became a member of VanityFair Magazine and then the famous Vogue Magazine. Aditional to her editiorial magazine she have won several awarding advertising campaigns. Also she collaborated with many arts organizations, including American Ballet Theatre, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and the Mark Morris Dance Group, and with Mikhail Baryshnikov. 

Annie Leibovitz

The source: www.muzul.com

Annie also have produced several books about Photography (obvieously) have made a big echo in a Photography and publishing industry. No wonder why, she is one of the most popular photographers from the biggest magazines out there. 

Here is the list of all of her books published throughout her photography career years:

•  Annie Leibovitz: Photographs (1983)
• Photographs: Annie Leibovitz 1970–1990 (1991)
•  Olympic Portraits (1996)
•  Women (1999)
•  American Music (2003)
•  A Photographer’s Life: 1990–2005 (2006),
•  Annie Leibovitz at Work (2008)
• Pilgrimage (2011)
• Annie Leibovitz, a limited-edition, over-sized volume published by Taschen in 2014.

But first I would ask myself, why do I want to research about her? I think the reason behind is, because she does a very modern photography, she always has presented a very high standard of professionalism at any source of her career. Working for a RollingStone's in 1970 when she was just 21 was a major success and it just shows how hard working and smart she must be. Looking at her exhibition at the numerous museums around the world I have to describe her work as a golden piece of Art Photography. Now she is working on a Instagram Photo collection which should appear very soon this year ( I think...) 

There isn't much that I have found out about her personally but what's interested about this research is the fact that I had a chance to thank her for the great exhibition at the Portrait Photography Museum in London..... And another chance to ask her, what advice she would give to anybody who starts with photography now a days. She answered very quickly " Just do what you love to do, and give 100% of yourself and the rest will come to you". Those words stuck to my mind till now, I was only 19 at the time, and I wasn't too interested about the photography, but her work an the way she shows world in a different prospect gave me a lot of influence and motivation to do better in my photography. And her words are always at the back of my head, because it is important to love what we do and give a 100% of ourselfs, otherwise nothing will ever work. 

So now I'd like to present some of Annie's piece of work ( all images I have downloaded of listed websites below) 

Celebrity Shoots:

All images are shot by Annie Leibovitz and are downloaded from www.es.slideshare.net/

I can tell Annie liked taking shorts of famous people and brilliant Black and White photographs. The quality of her images are incredible and on a top of the industries level. And even when the images are only black and white, she took care about the right lighting and the concept of the photos. One of my favourite images of this list is "Bruce Willies", the light, the texture and the smile of him makes this image a very special one. The background lighting doing its job as well, makes the image more clear, and everything is matches perfectly well.

 Also the picture looks very natural without too much of Photoshop retouching.  The second one is completely opposite, which is the Kate Moss's picture. 

This one is totally fashionable and very "Vogue" one. The jewellery is very stylish and brings everything to the image. Without the image Kate Moss would be just a pretty model in a Black and White photograph, but wearing them beautiful, incredible earings she looks absolutely amazing and the destinctive make up does the job as well. Contouring plays the main role in her face, the jaw cheeks are very outstanding. Unfortunately, the image isn't as natural as the "Bruce Willies" one, but still the end conception is amazing ! 

Now time for a bit different type of portrait photography from Annie Leibovitz : 

Magazine Images 

All images are download from www.prints.com

Because Annie is mainly magazine photographer, I'd like to present her magazine shots that she did. They are very nice and very stylish, just like rest of her images. My favourite one from the list above is the very first one. The model holding the ball wearing fitness track suit. The image is very powerful and shows the serious energy and the tone of the photograph suits to the scenario of the shot. I think I'd like to take some inspiration and maybe try something like this on my subject on the shoots I am going to do later. 

My second favourite is an image with a guy with all nude women on the picture. The photo shows the power of the guy who is the only one , who's got a clothing on, yet all women are wearing only underwear while posing and "taking shots" of other nearly nude models. The scenario happens on a "sea" where numerous "naked" female models posing and playing with camera, and the only guy out there is wearing full suit and I think he represents "the boss" in there. That photograph could be a great example for some campaign against female rights.  Also the tone of the picture is great presented and the clouds above them are just at the right place. Making the scene very measurable and scary! 

Overall I think all her pictures has got some dose of a scariness, doesn't matter what scenario the image represents. Even the victorian shotos that she does quit often for Vogue could be sometimes a scarry one, but on the other hand they are very classy one too ! I personally believe Annie Leibovitz is a amazing portrait photographer, and I would love to see her exhibition again one day. 

Because she best known portrait cover magazine photographer everybody has a different opinions about her work and images, but I personally think the best shots that she does are the ones where she want to present the model on a very natural scenario. Of course, this is only my personal preference, and I will definitely get some examples and inspiration of her ideas and shots from her amazing portrait photographs. 

And I will look further, and researching bit more about her later, once I'm going to plan my shots and scenario of the portraits.