By: Annie Leibovitz Publisher: Random House Average Rating: Binding: Hardcover Label: Random House Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 240 Publication Date: November 18, 2008 Release Date: November 18, 2008
Amazon.com Review: Book Description “The first thing I did with my very first camera was climb Mt. Fuji. Climbing Mt. Fuji is a lesson in determination and moderation. It would be fair to ask if I took the moderation part to heart. But it certainly was a lesson in respecting your camera. If I was going to live with this thing, I was going to have to think about what that meant. There were not going to be any pictures without it." —Annie Leibovitz
Annie Leibovitz describes how her pictures were made, starting with Richard Nixon's resignation, a story she covered with Hunter S. Thompson, and ending with Barack Obama's campaign. In between are a Rolling Stones Tour, John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Demi Moore, Whoopi Goldberg, The Blues Brothers, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Keith Haring, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Patti Smith, George W. Bush, William S. Burroughs, Kate Moss and Queen Elizabeth. The most celebrated photographer of our time discusses portraiture, reportage, fashion photography, lighting, and digital cameras.
Amazon Exclusive Essay: Annie Leibovitz on Photography
In 1977, when Jann Wenner, the editor of Rolling Stone, asked me to prepare a fifty-page portfolio of my pictures for the tenth anniversary issue of the magazine, I decided not to simply make a selection of photographs that had been published. I looked at everything I had done since I started working. It was a revelation. For one thing, I had no idea that I had accumulated so many photographs. You lose track of them when you’re working every day. And you see the work in a different way when you look at it from the distance of time. You get a sense of where you are going. You start to see a life.
I had the opportunity to edit my work most thoroughly when I prepared two retrospective books, Annie Leibovitz: 1970–1990 and A Photographer’s Life: 1990–2005. It was thrilling to see that first book laid out chronologically. To see the pictures historically. The second book, A Photographer’s Life, was assembled immediately after the death of Susan Sontag and my father. Editing the book took me through the grieving process.
The books are pure. They are mine. The magazines I work for don’t belong to me. It’s the editor’s magazine, and the editor has every right to use the material the way he or she wants to. It isn’t just that art directors and editors at magazines make selections that I wouldn’t necessarily make. Which they sometimes do. Or that they run pictures too small. Or that they put so much type on the pictures that you can’t see them anymore. Magazines have quite specific needs. It’s a collaboration only so far, which is true of almost all assignment work.
When I began working on my new book, I thought it would be a pamphlet of maybe forty pages or so. I intended to take ten of my photographs and dissect them. They didn’t have to be my most famous pictures, just pictures that I cared about. But as I began going through the material I realized that I might as well be more ambitious. I started to think that I would try to answer every single question anyone has ever asked about how my work is done. To defuse the mystery, and the misconceptions. To explain that it’s nothing more than work. And learning how to see.
So my forty-page pamphlet became a 240-page book with over a hundred photographs in it. It is written for someone like the person I was at the beginning of my career, when I was in art school. A young me. I didn’t know which road I would take. Whether it would be a commercial road, a magazine road, an artistic road, a journalistic road. It’s written for that person. Someone who is interested in photography but isn’t sure how they want to use it.
The book is more emotional than I had imagined it would be. But, most importantly, it is my edit. No one is going to care about, or understand, your work the way you do, and if you are going to explain it you have to be able to present it the way you want to. That’s what a book can do better than any other medium.
See Annie Leibovitz's 15 favorite photography books.
No There There We are absorbed by celebrity photographers, that is, photographers who photograph celebrities and who have become celebrities in their own right. Lord Snowden and Richard Avedon come to mind. (Avedon was so famous that a loosely fictionalized movie musical about him was made: "Funny Face" with Fred Astaire and Audrey Hepburn). Today's biggest celebrity photographer is Annie Leibovitz. She does it all: portraits, news photography, landscapes, nudes.
"Annie Leibovitz at Work" is a collection of her photographs and recollections. There are short chapters ranging between a few sentences and several pages. Each chapter is supported by one or more of the photographer's pictures. They are all here: John and Yoko, Schwarzenegger on the white horse, O.J., Sarajevo.
One might think that the book would provide insights into how Leibovitz gets her vision, or what her internal life is like or at least something meaningful about her subjects. There is a tip of the hat to these matters, but mostly Leibovitz just follows the route of "then I did this, and then I did that, and then I did the other thing." We want insights and we get a peek. In fact, in her musings, she almost suggests that the photograph can't provide us with understanding of the world. I began to wonder if there was no there there.
Perhaps as a sop to those who thought they would learn to take better pictures, or at least something about the photographer's technique, there are two chapters at the end of the book entitled "Equipment" and "the Ten Most Asked Questions". These chapters are as light weight as the rest of the book. Those interested in learning how to take pictures of celebrities or otherwise would be far better off reading the books of authors who have not achieved celebrity status outside of the photographic world like Joe McNally or Michael Grecco.
The book could have redeemed itself with Leibovitz' pictures, except that they are all printed at snapshot size. Her pictures deserve more real estate.
The most telling thing about this book is that nowhere on the cover or title page does it say that Leibovitz wrote this book. Instead, in the back of the book we find the statement "Text based on conversations with Sharon Delano." Let's hope we get better information when the photographer actually writes her own book.
Inspiring This book was fantastic. As a young up and coming photographer, it is absolutely inspiring to read the story from on of the greats. The love that Annie has for the art is detailed excellently through this book. I would recommend this for anyone who is even slightly interested in Annie, or even photography itself.
ANNIE If you admire Annie Liebovitz and her photographs, you must own this book. It explains so much about her and how she chooses her subjects. She is a perfectionist and humanist. This is one of the best books about an individual ever written. Buy it or listen to it or check it out of the library.
The most enjoyable book on photography I've read in a long time Annie Leibovitz's simple, straightforward, honest and self-effacing look at her work and her process makes this book thoroughly enjoyable. With none of the hyper-opinionated shooting advice of many of her colleagues, she proves, to paraphrase Lance Armstrong, that "It's Not About the Gear." Whether you love her work, or hate it (and really, how can you hate it?), I think you will come to appreciate her approach to shooting, her normalcy, and her willingness to share so much of what's going through her head when she works. If you are not a photographer, I think you will still enjoy the celebrity insights, the whirlwind life, and the approach to creativity that Ms. Leibovitz describes so articulately. If you are a photographer, you will find this view of the artist at work simply inspiring.
Inspiration I must confess from the start that I love Annie's work. The title says much about the nature of the book.I bought this book for that reason. I found her candid review of the life of a working professional photographer fascinating. That said, this is not a technical manual for aspiring portrait photographers. You can, like myself, draw much from Annie's work but if it's technical details shot by shot then you are best looking elsewhere. For me, Annie Leibovitz At Work serves as an inspiration. As such I got my money's worth from this book without a doubt.
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In 1977, when Jann Wenner, the editor of Rolling Stone, asked me to prepare a fifty-page portfolio of my pictures for the tenth anniversary issue of the magazine, I decided not to simply make a selection of photographs that had been published. I looked at everything I had done since I started working. It was a revelation. For one thing, I had no idea that I had accumulated so many photographs. You lose track of them when you’re working every day. And you see the work in a different way when you look at it from the distance of time. You get a sense of where you are going. You start to see a life.
