Annie Leibovitz Research Paper

ANNIE LEIBOVITZ – Biography
Annie Leibovitz was born on the 2nd of October 1949. She was born in Waterbury, Connecticut, U.S. She is an American portrait photographer and photographs mostly actors and actresses. She was the first woman to hold an exhibition at Washington’s National Portrait Gallery in 1991. She married her girlfriend ‘Susan Sontag’ in 1989 and her wife died in 2004. Leibovitz has three daughters. Her first daughter named ‘Sarah Cameron Leibovitz’ was born in October 2001. And her twin girls, Susan and Samuelle, were born to a surrogate mother in May 2005.

ARTWORKS

Whoopi Goldberg – 1984 (year), photograph (medium), dimensions unknown

Johnny Depp and Kate Moss – 1994 (year), photograph (medium), dimensions unknown

More Demi Moore – 1991 (year), Magazine cover art (medium), dimensions unknown

Materials used: “I like to combine ambient light with a strobe, I do it a lot.

It allows my background to become seamless in a way, very flat. The image itself becomes almost one-dimensional. By lighting the subject I find they pop forward, then I leave the camera open to get the background.” – Annie Leibovitz
Concepts for:
Whoopi Goldberg – This photograph is of the famous actress, comedian, author and television host Whoopi Goldberg. She is lying in a milk bathtub with her arms and legs sticking up out of the milk. A poignant Goldberg who joked about using Chlorox to bleach her skin inspired Leibovitz. Goldberg’s pose was not intentional: “the actress slipped as she was getting into the milk-filled bathtub.
Johnny Depp and Kate Moss – This photograph is of Jonny Depp and his girlfriend Kate Moss at the time. Kate Moss is lying down on the bed naked and Johnny Depp is lying on the top of her fully clothed. This photograph is an image of the embraces in a lovers’ lock, which was very sexually raw and revealing.
More Demi Moore – This photograph was a controversial hand-bra nude of Demi Moore when she was seven months pregnant with her second child. All she is wearing is her diamond ring.

MODERN

PHOTOGRAPHY
Modern Photography is a trend in photography from around 1910-1950 when photographers started producing sharp focused photographs. They used the camera as a mechanical and technological tool. Modern photography overpowered the Pictorialist mode from 1904. Paul Strand and Edward Weston further expanded the artistic capabilities and techniques.
Cultural Frame
Annie Leibovitz started taking photographs in 1970 and is still taking photos to this day.

She began taking photographs for the ‘Rolling Stones’ in 1970. In 1980 she shot a photo of John Lennon and Yoko One, the day John Lennon was shot. In 1983 she got a job working for the entertainment magazine ‘Vanity Fair’. Robert Frank and Henri Cartier-Bresson who were talented photographers influenced Leibovitz.
Structural Frame
Leibovitz’s photographs are easily recognised for their bright colours, intense lighting and for her unique and surprising poses. She is a master at projecting the pop culture at the time. When Leibovitz was working for Rolling Stone magazine she mainly composed black-and-white images. She then later began to compose coloured images.
Subjective Frame
Leibovitz creates photographs that project pop culture at the time they are taken. Her photograph of John Lennon and Yoko Ono captured their love for each other. Which is also similar to the photograph of Johnny Depp and Kate Moss. They are similar because in John Lennon’s photograph he is naked cuddling into his fully clothed wife, whereas Johnny Depp is fully clothed on top of his naked girlfriend.
Post-Modern

Frame
Annie Leibovitz excels the traditional borders that separate commercial and artistic photography. Her photographs are placed in glossy magazines, galleries, books and billboards. She pushes boundaries with her photographs. For example, many people questioned her photograph titled “More Demi Moore”. Critics rated it as “grotesque and obscene” and others thought it was a “powerful artistic statement.” Many celebrities posed for pregnancy photographs similar to this, accept not as naked as Moore.