Traces of Multimedia: Annie Leibovitz

Annie Leibovitz: Life Through A Lens

I like to splurge on an iTunes movie rental on the weekends, especially when it’s raining. Usually I try to select from the documentary section, and something of interest. Past rentals have included “Helvetica” which provided great inspiration on design and how typeface influences our decisions. This time I wanted to see what made Annie Leibovitz tick. After watching it, here’s my takeaways:

She makes a difference by provoking people. Mad or happy, if you get people out of their chair, then you’ve done most of your job. Getting them to do the right thing at that point is crucial. But nevertheless, this approach fueled her desire to do things like shoot Demi Moore nude or go on tour with the Stones. The Moore picture took Vanity Fair from 800,000 to more than 1 million subscribers. Getting noticed gets people’s attention. Inspire, then Inform, then Entrust, as someone I work with likes to say. And in that order.

Her move to work for Vanity Fair after a career built with Rolling Stone wasn’t seen as jumping ship on music photojournalism to fashion and glitz. It was a new playing field to learn new moves, styles, etc. It only built her photojournalism qualities by venturing into well-crafted pre-conceived portaiture.

But she admits this was the bane of her existence, with each celebrity shoot pushing the edge of demand, anxiety, and concept.

Towards the end she says of this danger, “I started in this business so young that all the other lives did seem much more exciting and adventurous. You do start to think you’re living that life, and you forget to build your own.

So her friend Susan Sontag told her to come to Sarejevo and document what was going on there. No crews. And when she got there, to go straight to the morgue so she would get the full reality of what was happening. Boom. Hit hard. She suddenly didn’t see which side of Barbera Streisandt’s face was better to photograph as something important. Reality check.

She saw herself at 50, and forgot to have kids. Had kids. Her world became “round, not flat.”

In the end, what’s the bridge between her portraiture/fashion/glitz side and her journalistic side? What’s the thread that makes her work more than the sum of the parts (that makes it multimedia?). It’s humanized.