Photographer Report
Personal Background
Annie Leibovitz was born in Waterbury, Connecticut in October of 1949. Her father had a military career and wasn't around all that much. On the other hand, her mother was a dancer. The family was originally living in the Philippines in 1967, when Annie enrolled in the San Francisco Art Institute and moved to the states to start her photography career. She was then given her first commercial in the Rolling Stone magazine. 3 years later her career exploded and she started getting deals and offers and opportunities left and right.
Style
Annie Leibovitz is known for her dramatic, quirky, and iconic photographic portraits of celebrities in particular. She strives to use natural lighting as much as possible in her photographs to bring out the “true emotion and look” of her photographed celebrities. Her work is very clean and pristine and brings out the true character of the persona in her photographs. She used her people's bodies and characteristics to create a look for them as an individual or a look as a duo/partnership or as a group all together.
Philosophy
This photographer stages the persona in her photographs carefully and purposefully to create a scene with every picture, this is why she mostly works with celebrities. She moves them around normally taking pictures with 1 or more people in them and makes them create a scene. Then captures that scene which tells a very specific story. She tries to bring out emotion and character in celebrities that either haven't been shown yet or need to be put on blast more.
Influences
This photographer has shown me that when you take a picture, it needs to have purpose. You might have to tweak and or move some objects or people in your photographs to bring out the picture you want. When she takes pictures it is never set up how she wants, she always moves things around to bring out the “right” image and story she wants. I try and do the same with my images as I move and or tweak things to try and bring out my “right” image and story.
Compare and Contrast
For these first two sets of photographs, in her picture you can see a man with his leg up in mostly black and white except for the skin he is exposing. I tried recreating this with my Father having pretty much any and all surrounding be black and white while keeping any skin he is exposing the true color of his skin. I find both these images try to tell a story by exposing only the character/subject in the photo and keeping all other things in the photograph unsaturated.
For the second two sets of photographs, in her picture there are two people sitting and staring at the camera quite sternly. I tried recreating this image with my Mother and Father both sitting side by side staring dead at the camera with a stern look on both their faces and the person on the left with their arms crossed. This image can mean very different things depending on who the person looking at it is. This can either paint a picture relating to your very own personal life, or for me personally it carries a strong look of discipline and disappointment in it.
Now for the final set of photographs, in her picture you can see an actress in a gray “wife beater” sitting smoking a cigar. I recreated this by sitting in that same pose in a gray wife beater with a pen in my mouth (cannot use a cigar). Both of these images look like they are straight out of a movie and both, at the same time, paint a picture of not only just a cool alpha look, but also a somewhat stern look as both subjects are staring straight at the camera.
Personal Artist Statement
All my images have a very similar look and taste. Most of them have the saturation lowered drastically and in some cases all the way down to zero, because it gives a more serious stern look. Leibovitz in most of her photographs also uses this stern, serious, black and white look in her pictures. All of my pictures also use either me or the “celebrities” of my life just like Leibovitz does. For instance, in the first one I use my father. For the second I use my mother and father. And for the last I use myself which all in all paints a very familial picture between all 3 of my photographs.
Sources
“Annie Leibovitz.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., https://www.britannica.com/biography/Annie-Leibovitz.
Leibovitz, Annie. “Artworks.” Artnet.com, 2022, http://www.artnet.com/artists/annie-leibovitz/.
Leibovitz, Annie. “Annie Leibovitz (@Annieleibovitz) • Instagram Photos and Videos.” Instagram, 2022, https://www.instagram.com/annieleibovitz/.
Leibovitz, Annie. “Artworks.” Artnet.com, 2022, http://www.artnet.com/artists/annie-leibovitz/.
Leibovitz, Annie. “Annie Leibovitz (@Annieleibovitz) • Instagram Photos and Videos.” Instagram, 2022, https://www.instagram.com/annieleibovitz/.