Photography Essay

Annie Leibovitz is a American portrait shooter from Waterbury Connecticut. In high school, she became interested in many different artistic endeavors, and began to write and play music. She attended the San Francisco Art Institute, where she studied painting. She continued to develop her photography skills while working various jobs. When Annie returned to the United States in 1970, she started her career as a staff photographer, working for the just launched Rolling Stone magazine. In 1973,  the publisher Jann Wenner named Leibovitz the chief photographer of Rolling Stone, a job that she held for 10 years. Leibovitz worked for the magazine until 1983, and her intimate photographs of celebrities helped define the Rolling Stone look. While working for Rolling Stone, Leibovitz became more aware of the other magazines and she was influenced by other photographers like Richard Avedon. Richard Avedon’s portraits were an important and powerful example in her life. She learned that you can work for magazines and still do your own personal work, which for her was the most important thing. She wanted intimate photos that expressed emotion, and she delivered.