Since I was into shooting Portraits of Arthropods, learning and understanding the works of Annie Leibovitz, once the cheif photographer of Rolling Stone, then the photographer for Vanity Fair, and later a photographer of her own projects, could shed some light on my work on Arthropods.
When she was shooting for Rolling Stone, the pictures were the moments, she had less to prepare, a lot of working between her subjects and her, the environment plays a lot, so the images turn out being spontaneous and seemingly contained more truth in them. The image of Ono and John was simple and emotionally charged. An icon of his time, a legend that fall for his love, a sense of the powerful needing the comfort of the weaker sex that was repulsively cold and closed, where John was powerfully naked and susceptible.
As a Vanity Fair photographer, she had to cater to the viewers, the patrons, there are more to grapple and resolve. She had to conceptualize, see the image before they were taken. There was a need for public acceptance as compare to the Rolling Stone, there was a need for acceptance by the main stream. Rebellion and having a sense of freedom were not the rule. She gave up something, freedom, and rehabilitation could have been instrumental for her need to gain mainstream acceptance, as her days of drugs was seen as social ill. She remade herself. She had shown resilience to come back and she did.
However, one part of her that was lost, was to be re-waken by Susan Songtag, her very good friend that was instrumental in reaffirming the destiny of photography, to tell the dimension of truth and reality, it brought some eternal meaning to her work.
Links: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annie_Leibovitz,
youtube :
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRhbqtV6RcA&feature=fvw
When she was shooting for Rolling Stone, the pictures were the moments, she had less to prepare, a lot of working between her subjects and her, the environment plays a lot, so the images turn out being spontaneous and seemingly contained more truth in them. The image of Ono and John was simple and emotionally charged. An icon of his time, a legend that fall for his love, a sense of the powerful needing the comfort of the weaker sex that was repulsively cold and closed, where John was powerfully naked and susceptible.
As a Vanity Fair photographer, she had to cater to the viewers, the patrons, there are more to grapple and resolve. She had to conceptualize, see the image before they were taken. There was a need for public acceptance as compare to the Rolling Stone, there was a need for acceptance by the main stream. Rebellion and having a sense of freedom were not the rule. She gave up something, freedom, and rehabilitation could have been instrumental for her need to gain mainstream acceptance, as her days of drugs was seen as social ill. She remade herself. She had shown resilience to come back and she did.
However, one part of her that was lost, was to be re-waken by Susan Songtag, her very good friend that was instrumental in reaffirming the destiny of photography, to tell the dimension of truth and reality, it brought some eternal meaning to her work.
Links: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annie_Leibovitz,
youtube :
- An interview with Annie Liebovittz by TIMES, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRhbqtV6RcA,
- AB shoot Marie Antoinette http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNyIUlra9LU,
- Great shots by AB http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ET8tOfyWYLg&feature=related,
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRhbqtV6RcA&feature=fvw
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