Annie Leibovitz has pushed American popular culture through the direction of her lens. She was the first American to photograph the latest Queen of England. She has photographed the iconic image of naked, lovestruck Kate Moss with playboy Johnny Depp sprawled upon her with immense admiration. Street-style artist, Keith Haring, has posed in his fully painted birthday suit in Times Square for her and she has successfully published bestselling, award-winning photography books on her various interests. Throughout her working relations for high-profile publications, she brings detailed storytelling and emotive imagery that draws out a vulnerability and the unique qualities of her muses’.
From rock n’ roll photographer to celebrity-focused photographer to part-time commercial photographer and eventually becoming a sought-after high-production fashion photographer, Leibotivz has managed to wiggle out of confining titles through her continuous evolution.
Born June 2, 1949, in Connecticut to Samuel Leibovitz, a lieutenant Colonel in the U.S. Air Force, and Marilyn Leibovitz, a dance teacher. She attended San Francisco Art Institute intending to become a painter, although her decision to take an evening course in photography changed the direction of her career.
Rolling Stones Magazine was her first commission as a commercial photographer capturing British rock icon John Lennon. Within three years, Leibovitz became the magazine’s chief photographer. In 1975, Leibovitz toured extensively and intimately photographing The Rolling Stones guitarist, Keith Richards, and lead singer, Mick Jagger. During this period, she pushed the boundaries of photojournalism by mistakenly becoming too personally involved with her subjects and nearing a visit to rehab.
Her most famous image to date was her 1981 Rolling Stones cover of fully clothed Yoko Ono with a very naked and vulnerable John Lennon glued to her side. The image was captured on December 8, 1980, just hours
before his assassination.
After shooting 142 covers for Rolling Stones magazines and becoming known as a rock n’ roll portrait photographer, she took the opportunity to transform her career in 1983 by working under the umbrella of a multifaceted portrait photographer working with A-list actors, athletes, and political figures for Condé Nast-owned publication, Vanity Fair.
After receiving the American Society of Magazine Photographers awards in 1983, Annie started pursuing advertising photography from 1986 onwards. She
has crafted some of the most memorable American campaigns of the last four decades such as the sexy, versatile, and celebrity-focused Got Milk campaign for the California Milk Processor Board, the American Express Portraits campaign with individual portraits of Diana von Furstenberg, Beyoncé, Mike Lazaridis, Ellen Degeneres, Venus Williams, and Larry David and campaigns with Honda, Gap, Nike, Celebrity Cruises, Google Pixel, Canada Goose, Ford, and Corcoran Group. Leibovitz has always photographed diverse muses, talents, and ethnicities offering variety and an unpredictable element to her work with impressive creative novelty, vivid colours, and her trademark lighting techniques.
In 1991, Leibotiz became the first female photographer to exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington D.C. She photographed the American Olympic games hosted in Atlanta, Georgia in 1996 while a decade earlier she covered the FIFA World Cup in Mexico. Her second exhibition, Women: New Portraits, hosted in Washington D.C.s Corcoran Gallery of Art became a successful travelling exhibition.
Her life is admired through the detailed documentary Annie Leibovitz: Life Through a Lens directed by Barbara Leibovitz in 2009. The documentary has extensive footage of innumerable high-profile admirers and captures her excessive work ethic. Her stringent tango with perfection is so meticulous the portrait photographer once found herself in $24 million worth of debt with her no-expense-too-large mentality while shooting.
The negative publicity was soon smoothed over after shooting then White House resident and first African American president Barack Obama with his wife, Michele Obama, and their two daughters. In 1998, Leibotiz was poached by Vogue’s high-maintenance editor-in-chief, Anna Wintour, to work with Vogue America. Since joining the magazine she has captured Jennifer Lawrence, Rihanna, Meryl Streep, Cate Blanchett, Kim Kardashian, Kanye West, Claire Danes, Penelope Cruz, Tayo Bero, Charlize Theron, Jennifer Lopez, and more recently the she shot the American Vogue cover monumentalizing Karl Lagerfeld’s work for Chanel with superstar muses Gigi Hadid, Naomi Campbell, Kendall Jenner, Amber Valletta, and a slew of other high-profile and household name supermodels. Leibotiz’s imagery is definable and recognisable at first glance. Her career is vast and multifaceted, but more importantly she has organically championed diversity throughout her career.
