PBS "American Masters" - Annie Leibovitz

"Alan Browne" wrote in message
.. .
I watched this the other night after Summer Wind posted a "heads up", so
thank you Summer Wind.

A very worthwhile 80 minutes or so on the life and career (to date) of
Annie Leivbovitz. I recorded it on my DVR and will certainly watch it
again soon.

Some of the text below is a bit of a plot spoiler, so if you're waiting to
see the program at some point in the future, better not read!
(Points below not necc. in perfect order; I've likely missed some notable
points).

Immediate impressions:
-Army (Air Force) brat
-mildly priviledged
-indulgent parents
-naive. Really, really naive.

(... " I had this camera and if I put the needle in the middle, then the
exposure would be right " -Annie Leibovitz...) Obviously could have used
this NG way back when. I'm sure she knows more about exposure than most
of us.

Rolling Stone
-University: paraphrasing her words "to teach art, one needs to be an
artist first... oops!"
(not clear to me if she graduated, not that that matters)
-became a photographer to back up the editorial, not becasue RS needed a
photographer to make statements
-fell quickly in league with bad-boy Hunter Thompson
-developed as an "environmental portraitist", the environment being 60's
counter culture scene
-learned to be a photographer long after becoming a photographer.

Luckily for her, the editors at Rolling Stone apparently didn't know what a
photographer was supposed to be either in the early days. She did what came
naturally and intuitively during her formative years without a bunch of
know-it-all editors telling how to approach an assignment. She started with
simple cameras and Tri-X and grew into the job. I'd like to see some of
those early Rolling Stones issues from the San Francisco days. If anyone
knows of an online archive, please let me know.

-toured with the Rolling Stones. RS staff very worried. Nothing implied
that she, er, indulged in the excesses as much as she was strongly exposed
to it... (later in the show however...)
-Style: at some point the staff of the RS decided that henceforth all
covers of people (music artists) would be posed against a plain white
background. AL was the principal cover photog and went with it...
-... during some protest with many music artists, she gathered the artists
against a white BG for the cover shot... which was published that way....
-... AL gets lambasted by _____ an influential editor for not doing what
was needed with that story. Became a "re-look" point in her career.
-due to above, enhances the symbols surrounding the subject. More lyrical
and creative. Gets the subjects to do her bidding, often against their
own wishes.

That's the point when she moved from documentary style of portraiture,
photographing the subject in a natural setting, to creating the setting and
manipulating the subjects. She started doing setups with sets, wardrobe,
complex lighting, hair & makeup. She now has big budgets and assistants.

-John Lennon/Yoko Oh-no! cover just before he was shot
(Sidebar: to RS' great credit they ran that cover with no other print on
the cover (headlines)).

There's a paragraph about the taking of that picture at the American Masters
Website.

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/database/leibovitz_a.html

In 1981 ROLLING STONE sent Leibovitz to photograph John Lennon and Yoko Ono,
who had recently released their album DOUBLE FANTASY. For the portrait
Leibovitz imagined that the two would pose together nude. Lennon disrobed,
but Ono refused to take off her pants. Leibovitz "was kinda disappointed,"
according to ROLLING STONE, and so she told Ono to leave her clothes on. "We
took one Polaroid," said Leibovitz, "and the three of us knew it was
profound right away." The resulting portrait shows Lennon nude and curled
around a fully clothed Ono. Several hours later, Lennon was shot dead in
front of his apartment. The photograph ran on the cover of the ROLLING STONE
Lennon commemorative issue. In 2005 the American Society of Magazine Editors
named it the best magazine cover from the past 40 years.


-party time. It was implied that AL partied quite heavilly and used
various pharmaceuticals (esp. pot and coke)
-RS moves to NYC. AL meets Ricahrd Avedon... she's nervous and floored.

Vanity Fair
-re-establishing the magazine, getting Annie was buying a degree of
respect
-covers including the (in)famous Demi Moore nudes. (To me the pregnant DM
was just a great cover, but I knew several people who were offended. Know
idea why.)

I wasn't offended, but indifferent. Demi Moore does nothing for me, clothed
or nude, pregnant or not.

-The pregnant DM cover takes VF from 800K to over 1M in circulation.
Number never recedes.
-AL finds most of her work at VF to be "commercial"
-re-defines her shooting again and again

The times changed and she changed with them. The hippie age was over and
glitz was in again.

-becomes a budget buster with ever more elaborate sets, but keeps
originality
-earns the ire of co-workers over budgets and lack of professional
discipline (late, rental cars abandoned hither and yonder [that might have
been in the RS phase, not sure)]
-her "companion" Susan Sontag pushes her to take a more
analytical/intellectual approach to art (implications that AL felt a bit
put down by SS).

.... and the result was Annie's trip to Sarajevo.

-drug rehab (successful, no looking back)

Excellent.

-Sontag cancer, death
-AL father, old age, death
-1 child naturally, 2 by surrogate (father?)


It's wonderful that she's a parent at her age and that she has the resources
to give her children and good upbringing.

Equipment
-various during her teenage years/college; photo of her with a LF camera
(at school)
-Nikon? during her RS days
-Mamiya 67's of various sorts
-I think I saw an H1 a couple times
-Canon DSLR's (one that fails during the docu)
-Leica (M6 looking)
-strobes: just about all of the set shooting had strobe sets fired via
PW's.


This is from the American Masters essay regarding her recent personal
photos:

"Leibovitz composed these personal photographs with materials that she used
when she was first starting out in the '70s: a 35-millimeter camera,
black-and-white Tri X film."

Photography: she is one immersed photographer. Very intensely the owner
of what each session will result in. She's da boss.


People who find their calling early in life and stick with it are
fascinating to me, as I'm just the opposite. I've had several "careers" in
different fields and just recently took the plunge into retail business
ownership, another first.

Critiquing the docu:
-The docu was made by the subjects sister, so objectivity is questioned.
-Some "negative" moments are glossed over and probably many are not even
hinted at.

Me? I loved it, I'll watch it again. I'm not an AL "fan" but a lot of
her photography is striking and some of it wonderfully subtle.

Cheers,
Alan


Thanks for the summary.

SW

--
-- r.p.e.35mm user resource: http://www.aliasimages.com/rpe35mmur.htm
-- r.p.d.slr-systems: http://www.aliasimages.com/rpdslrsysur.htm
-- [SI] gallery & rulz: http://www.pbase.com/shootin
-- e-meil: Remove FreeLunch.

In article ,
"Summer Wind" wrote:

"Alan Browne" wrote in message
.. .
I watched this the other night after Summer Wind posted a "heads up", so
thank you Summer Wind.

A very worthwhile 80 minutes or so on the life and career (to date) of
Annie Leivbovitz. I recorded it on my DVR and will certainly watch it
again soon.

Some of the text below is a bit of a plot spoiler, so if you're waiting to
see the program at some point in the future, better not read!
(Points below not necc. in perfect order; I've likely missed some notable
points).

Immediate impressions:
-Army (Air Force) brat
-mildly priviledged
-indulgent parents
-naive. Really, really naive.

I saw that special after having seen her photo exhibit at the Brooklyn
Museum of Art two weeks ago. If anyone is going to be in the NYC area,
check out that exhibit; its very good.

Summer Wind wrote:
"Alan Browne" wrote in message
.. .

I watched this the other night after Summer Wind posted a "heads up", so
thank you Summer Wind.

A very worthwhile 80 minutes or so on the life and career (to date) of
Annie Leivbovitz. I recorded it on my DVR and will certainly watch it
again soon.

Some of the text below is a bit of a plot spoiler, so if you're waiting to
see the program at some point in the future, better not read!
(Points below not necc. in perfect order; I've likely missed some notable
points).

Immediate impressions:
-Army (Air Force) brat
-mildly priviledged
-indulgent parents
-naive. Really, really naive.

(... " I had this camera and if I put the needle in the middle, then the
exposure would be right " -Annie Leibovitz...) Obviously could have used
this NG way back when. I'm sure she knows more about exposure than most
of us.

Rolling Stone
-University: paraphrasing her words "to teach art, one needs to be an
artist first... oops!"
(not clear to me if she graduated, not that that matters)
-became a photographer to back up the editorial, not becasue RS needed a
photographer to make statements
-fell quickly in league with bad-boy Hunter Thompson
-developed as an "environmental portraitist", the environment being 60's
counter culture scene
-learned to be a photographer long after becoming a photographer.


Luckily for her, the editors at Rolling Stone apparently didn't know what a
photographer was supposed to be either in the early days. She did what came
naturally and intuitively during her formative years without a bunch of
know-it-all editors telling how to approach an assignment. She started with
simple cameras and Tri-X and grew into the job. I'd like to see some of
those early Rolling Stones issues from the San Francisco days. If anyone
knows of an online archive, please let me know.


-toured with the Rolling Stones. RS staff very worried. Nothing implied
that she, er, indulged in the excesses as much as she was strongly exposed
to it... (later in the show however...)
-Style: at some point the staff of the RS decided that henceforth all
covers of people (music artists) would be posed against a plain white
background. AL was the principal cover photog and went with it...
-... during some protest with many music artists, she gathered the artists
against a white BG for the cover shot... which was published that way....
-... AL gets lambasted by _____ an influential editor for not doing what
was needed with that story. Became a "re-look" point in her career.
-due to above, enhances the symbols surrounding the subject. More lyrical
and creative. Gets the subjects to do her bidding, often against their
own wishes.


That's the point when she moved from documentary style of portraiture,
photographing the subject in a natural setting, to creating the setting and
manipulating the subjects. She started doing setups with sets, wardrobe,
complex lighting, hair & makeup. She now has big budgets and assistants.


-John Lennon/Yoko Oh-no! cover just before he was shot
(Sidebar: to RS' great credit they ran that cover with no other print on
the cover (headlines)).


There's a paragraph about the taking of that picture at the American Masters
Website.

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/database/leibovitz_a.html

In 1981 ROLLING STONE sent Leibovitz to photograph John Lennon and Yoko Ono,
who had recently released their album DOUBLE FANTASY. For the portrait
Leibovitz imagined that the two would pose together nude. Lennon disrobed,
but Ono refused to take off her pants. Leibovitz "was kinda disappointed,"
according to ROLLING STONE, and so she told Ono to leave her clothes on. "We
took one Polaroid," said Leibovitz, "and the three of us knew it was
profound right away." The resulting portrait shows Lennon nude and curled
around a fully clothed Ono. Several hours later, Lennon was shot dead in
front of his apartment. The photograph ran on the cover of the ROLLING STONE
Lennon commemorative issue. In 2005 the American Society of Magazine Editors
named it the best magazine cover from the past 40 years.



-party time. It was implied that AL partied quite heavilly and used
various pharmaceuticals (esp. pot and coke)
-RS moves to NYC. AL meets Ricahrd Avedon... she's nervous and floored.

Vanity Fair
-re-establishing the magazine, getting Annie was buying a degree of
respect
-covers including the (in)famous Demi Moore nudes. (To me the pregnant DM
was just a great cover, but I knew several people who were offended. Know
idea why.)


I wasn't offended, but indifferent. Demi Moore does nothing for me, clothed
or nude, pregnant or not.

I'm not a great DM fan either, however, to me that, is a great image.
The one where she has a painted on suit is useless to me; the one where
DM is posing with her children is magnificent.

Funny thing about stars. People hate them or love them and then they
either can't do right at all, or can't do wrong at all.

I've always tried to see the best in all of them when it appears. For
example Jullianne Moore's portrayal of a well-to-do 1950's suburbanite
housewife in Far from Heaven was GREAT. Otherwise she makes me barf 9
times in 10.

-The pregnant DM cover takes VF from 800K to over 1M in circulation.
Number never recedes.
-AL finds most of her work at VF to be "commercial"
-re-defines her shooting again and again


The times changed and she changed with them. The hippie age was over and
glitz was in again.


-becomes a budget buster with ever more elaborate sets, but keeps
originality
-earns the ire of co-workers over budgets and lack of professional
discipline (late, rental cars abandoned hither and yonder [that might have
been in the RS phase, not sure)]
-her "companion" Susan Sontag pushes her to take a more
analytical/intellectual approach to art (implications that AL felt a bit
put down by SS).


... and the result was Annie's trip to Sarajevo.


-drug rehab (successful, no looking back)


Excellent.


-Sontag cancer, death
-AL father, old age, death
-1 child naturally, 2 by surrogate (father?)



It's wonderful that she's a parent at her age and that she has the resources
to give her children and good upbringing.

cynical
Money does wonders.
/cynical


Equipment
-various during her teenage years/college; photo of her with a LF camera
(at school)
-Nikon? during her RS days
-Mamiya 67's of various sorts
-I think I saw an H1 a couple times
-Canon DSLR's (one that fails during the docu)
-Leica (M6 looking)
-strobes: just about all of the set shooting had strobe sets fired via
PW's.



This is from the American Masters essay regarding her recent personal
photos:

"Leibovitz composed these personal photographs with materials that she used
when she was first starting out in the '70s: a 35-millimeter camera,
black-and-white Tri X film."


Photography: she is one immersed photographer. Very intensely the owner
of what each session will result in. She's da boss.



People who find their calling early in life and stick with it are
fascinating to me, as I'm just the opposite. I've had several "careers" in
different fields and just recently took the plunge into retail business
ownership, another first.

Congrats or commiserations as may apply!

Cheers,
Alan.

--
-- r.p.e.35mm user resource: http://www.aliasimages.com/rpe35mmur.htm
-- r.p.d.slr-systems: http://www.aliasimages.com/rpdslrsysur.htm
-- [SI] gallery & rulz: http://www.pbase.com/shootin
-- e-meil: Remove FreeLunch.

"Alan Browne" wrote in message
...
Summer Wind wrote:
[SNIP]

-Sontag cancer, death
-AL father, old age, death
-1 child naturally, 2 by surrogate (father?)



It's wonderful that she's a parent at her age and that she has the
resources to give her children and good upbringing.

cynical
Money does wonders.
/cynical


That is entirely true, of course. However, my step-mother was photographed
by AL a while back and they got talking: my s-m said that AL was very
pleasant, and talked readily about her children and with obvious affection
and enthusiasm. That matters to the children, I'm sure, a lot more than any
amount of money.


Peter