The Ups and Downs of Life Through the Lens of Annie Leibovitz

Born in Waterbury, Connecticut in 1949 and raised by parents of eastern European and Jewish descent, Annie Leibovitz spent her childhood moving from military base to military base as she saw the world through the perspective of a car window. Leibovitz used her background to begin her career as a photojournalist for Rolling Stone in 1970. By the time she was 23 years old, she had become the chief photographer for the magazine and had been given total artistic freedom to experiment with her work. This was only the beginning of her iconic portraiture and unique ability to exaggerate and enhance the characteristics of each subject she captured.

In her photobook, A Photographer’s Life (1990-2005), Leibovitz depicts both her personal life and professional life in a series of deep and compelling photographs. The photographs span from portrait of well-known figures to personal at-home photos of her family and friends. The book chronicles her life and is a narrative of life’s overall contrasts and continuities. The universal theme of her work shown in this photobook is life itself and how there are ups and downs, successes and failures, and health and illness in each person’s journey on this earth. My rationale for choosing Leibovitz’s photobook is to embody the rawness of life and show how it can be portrayed so truthfully through a photograph. Thus, I plan to explore the ebb and flow of life through my own personal lens in the coming weeks.

   Images from A Photographer’s Life, Annie Leibovitz

 

Leibovitz’s Perspective Through My Own Lens

Although Annie Leibovitz is most famously known for her iconic and dramatic portraits of renowned celebrities and people of power, her ability to capture a personal moment in time and show the rawness of life is very apparent in her photobook A Photographer’s Life (1990-2005) as well. In her photobook, Leibovitz uses a multitude of stylistic choices and portrays them differently across her photographs presented. Her methods range from carefully staged portraits with superb lighting in color to casual and effortless candids with the use of natural light in black and white. Her methods while taking these amazing pieces of art included making her subjects feel comfortable and practicing with people she feels closest to in order to capture celebrity portraits as best as she can.

Images from A Photographer’s Life, Annie Leibovitz

 

Many of the photos she took of her family and friends are candids, however many are posed as well. I attempted to see through this point of view by taking both candid and posed photographs of my own family. Most of her family and friend photography are in black and white, so I feel it is most fitting to present these photos in black and white rather than color given that she took these on a film camera. To me, these photos were very personal, along with the many personal self-portraits she provided. I plan to attempt to take self-portraits as she did as well; very casual yet posed inside a safe space like my home.

Images from A Photographer’s Life, Annie Leibovitz

 

While many of her photographs were taken in the comfort of her home or family and friends’ homes, Leibovitz also took an array of photos inside studios and at staged or notable locations. These portraits were mainly of celebrities and powerful people, taken for magazines or other aspects of artistic media. A pattern I noticed in her portraiture of these icons is the detail and drama of each photo where she captures every aspect of a person’s face and body. She emphasizes glamour through high contrast and stage lighting, extravagant outfits in some cases, and power in many others through photos of actresses like Scarlett Johansson and presidents like George W. Bush.  Although I do not have access to famous celebrities, I will utilize her methods and captured portraits that resemble the use of vivid detail and drama she captured with the addition of my own lighting and emphasizing contrast.

Images from A Photographer’s Life, Annie Leibovitz

 

Lastly, I noticed that Leibovitz admired the contrast of the human body and the nature of the outdoors. Many of her photos are simple pictures of different body parts and scenery like the ocean or buildings in a city. I plan to use this point of view and capture photos that were of both of the human form and the world we live in outside of our homes. I will keep these photos mostly black and white because I feel that is what she focused on most in her photobook.

Images from A Photographer’s Life, Annie Leibovitz

 

I will take these photographs during all times of the day to play with natural light like she did in spaces around my house and outside. I also plan to take photos with more professional stage lighting and the use of backdrops to recreate her iconic portraits with high contrast. All in all, I feel that I will embody Leibovitz’s perspective through my own lens and celebrate her life as a photographer in my own unique way.

My Lens, My Life

Taking the series of photos below through the stylistic methods and perspective of such a renowned photographer like Annie Leibovitz was both an exciting challenge and learning experience. Through the lens of Leibovitz, I was able to learn how she sees the people she is closest to and how each subject tells a different story. By capturing my life through my owns lens while staying true to her styles, I found that I expressed the meaning of life to me in my own personal way.

I tried to embody both Leibovitz’s carefully staged portraits and casual candids of her family and friends in a journey throughout life starting from everyday candids and photographs of daily life to more posed, intimate and highly contrasted photos. By doing this, I hoped to show how life has both a fun and carefree side, but also has aspects of seriousness and importance. I specifically chose to present the gallery below in this order to reveal certain milestones in life and how as you get older, things become more clear and less chaotic. The beginning photos explain the disorganization of childhood shown through carefree candids and bedroom photographs. They soon lead up to young adulthood where responsibilities are presented through cooking, working, and taking care of others. Later on, adulthood is revealed through highly contrasted photos of the aging body and how life becomes more serious through posed portraits. Like Leibovitz did, I wanted to show the  universal theme of life and its ebb and flow through these photographs in my own personal light.

Analysis

The first photograph I chose to analyze is the photograph below of my father. What I noticed right away with Leibovitz’s portraits is that they are highly contrasted and emphasize the natural crevices of the body. When taking this photograph, I placed my subject up against a blank wall and shined a light from the left side to allow it to capture each detail of his face. I took a side profile portrait because although a lot of Leibovitz’s portraits were facing forward, I wanted to add a little of my own personal style to this one. By doing this, I felt that I was able to capture the fine details of his face and also present the photograph with enough contrast. I used Leibovitz’s portrait of Nelson Mandela as inspiration.

The next photograph that I thought was important to discuss in depth is this photograph of my sister laying on the couch in my living room. Like many of the photographs presented in Leibovitz’s photobook, this photograph was taken very casually in the comfort of the home. My sister decided to rest on our couch after doing work for a few hours. Although I was unsure of her level of stress, her body language at this time was enough to indicate to me that she needed some time to unwind. I found this theme of resting and taking time to wind down many times as I looked through Leibovitz’s photobook. Photos of her family and friends simply laying around, listening to music, or watching TV were very apparent as they proved to me that sometimes you just need to rest. When I took this photo, I didn’t want my sister to be the focal point as I wanted to capture the environment of the room around her as well, which I felt that Leibovitz did a lot in her photobook. Lastly, like Leibovitz, I used the natural light from the window to brighten my photo as well.

This last photo I chose to analyze more intensely is the photo below of my mother standing outside of our home. My intention in taking this photo was to recreate one of Leibovitz’s photos of her parents standing outside of her childhood home, which I have brought light to earlier in this blog. I love this photo because it is so simple and wholesome, yet tells a story as well . It reveals the simplicities of life and how one small thing can really brighten someone’s day; like the smile on my mother’s face. I feel a sense of pride from this photo because it shows how hard she has worked to create such a nice home for our family, and I feel that Leibovitz must have felt this way when she took a similar photograph of her parents.

 

A Presentation of My Own

The presentation below is given in this order (left to right) to reveal my overall theme of life through a story of 6 photos. We begin by waking up in bed, unsure of what will become of the day. I utilized natural light to capture the details of the sheets and show how they are not perfectly neat, like life itself. The next photo is a photograph of my sister laying on the couch, she seems in distress, which could reveal the times in life of confusion and ambiguity. Next is a photograph of a young girl twirling outside. I used this photograph as the turning point from carefree childhood to young adulthood where she is quite literally twirling into the next stage of life. This coming of age is revealed in the next photo of my birthday cake I received on my 20^th birthday. The last two photos, to me, represent the struggles and seriousness of adulthood; how we must care for one another while still staying true to our personal needs. The photograph of my father working contrasts greatly to my mother in the bathtub taking time out of her day for her mental health. I feel that all six of these photos stay true to Leibovitz’s style and message while also staying true to myself.

Leibovitz’s Photos that Matter to Me

After looking through Leibovitz’s photobook and understanding what kind of artist she is, I felt that these photos represent her the most and matter to me the most. These six images capture life in both the ups and downs and reveal a coming of age story for Leibovitz herself as she transforms from a photographer who embodied the life of her family and friends to one who captured the world’s most important people as well as herself.

 

“My hope is that we continue to nurture the places that we love, but that we also look outside our immediate worlds.” 

-Annie Leibovitz

Before starting this photographic journey, I did not know much about Annie Leibovitz or her personal style of photography. I simply knew her as a famous fashion photographer and that was about it. However, throughout this process I was able to learn so much more; not only about her as a photographer and an artist, but also her as a person. I was able to feel the personal connection to the subjects I took photographs of like she did. I feel that I have grown as a photographer by mirroring her own methods in my own unique way. I was able to capture personal moments in difficult times like these. Leibovitz’s message about life and how it has its ups and downs is a perfect thing to remember in our current global situation. Like she did, we will get passed the hard times and continue to remain creative even when our at-home situations are not ideal. My main take away from this project is that life is full of excitement and new experiences, and it is important to capture these moments even if they don’t seem necessary at the time.

Annie Leibovitz, The Guardian

Text:

https://www.theartstory.org/artist/leibovitz-annie/life-and-legacy/

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Annie-Leibovitz

Media:

Leibovitz, Annie. A Photographer’s Life 1990-2005. Print

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2019/mar/31/tricky-dicky-arnies-abs-annie-leibovitz-rolling-stone

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwydMJdyNRU