TONIGHT
E-mail a friendAnnie Leibovitz
airdate December 9, 2008
Using her signature photography technique, Annie Leibovitz has chronicled popular culture for more than 30 years. She's known for her portraits of celebrities and political icons and has had her work exhibited at museums and galleries all over the world. Leibovitz began her career, with Rolling Stone magazine, while still in school. She's a contributing photographer for Vanity Fair and has worked on high-profile ad campaigns. She's also assembled several books, including the new Annie Leibovitz at Work.
Celebrated photographer explains why the cliche smile for the camera is unnatural. (1:00)
Full interview. (9:26)
Annie Leibovitz
Tavis: I'm pleased to welcome Annie Liebovitz back to this program. The iconic photographer has produced some of the most indelible images of our time, many of which can be seen in her latest collection, "Annie Liebovitz at Work." Annie, nice to have you back on the program.
Annie Liebovitz: Thank you, thank you. I'm - it's great.
Tavis: It's a great book, first of all.
Liebovitz: Oh, it's fun to talk about, actually. It was hard to do, but they had to grab it, had to rip it out of my hands actually two or three weeks before it was to be printed.
Tavis: Are you that way with all the stuff that you shoot, that you have a hard time letting it go, agreeing with the photo editor this is what I like, this is what -
Liebovitz: I think I can say I don't like a lot of what I do, and I always wish I could go back and do it again. That's true. The good pictures are few and far between, and I'm always wishing I can go back, talk to my studio manager. Or sometimes I'll be in the middle of a shoot and I'll be setting up the next time we're going to go back, because - is that - I don't know if that's exactly -
Tavis: No, that's a good answer and I'm glad you gave me that answer, because it means I could take that answer one of three ways, off the top of my head. One, given who you are, this iconic photographer, one, you're an ingrate - you don't know good stuff when you see it; number two, you're insecure about your own work after all these years; or number three, you just don't know how to let it go.
Liebovitz: I think all of those. (Laughter) All those are probably true, but I think that a lot of it is you're only going to get a little bit of somebody or a little slice, and so you see so much more. It's almost like seeing peripheral vision and then your camera is allowing you sort of a more focused vision, so to speak.
So it's always frustrating about - you know you're only going to show a little bit of something, and at a certain point - when I was younger, I really didn't know when to go home. I really didn't know when it was over. It just seemed like - I even thought maybe if you stayed longer you would get more.
But I don't think that's true anymore. First of all, you can't stay forever and you do have to go home. And sometimes working fast is actually a good way to work.
Tavis: There are a lot of photographers in the world, a lot of good photographers in the world. Let me ask you to set your modesty aside for just a second. Have you figured out yet - and maybe you haven't, given one of your earlier answers - but have you figured out yet what we see about your work? What it is about your work that we see that makes you an iconic photographer?
Liebovitz: That's a really good question. I think that's why I don't really have a favorite photograph. I just really imagine that I think the strength is in the body of the work, so I don't - I try to be pretty straightforward, even in the most conceptual work, and I guess if I have to - if I'm pressed about this, I would have to say that it looks like there's some thought involved in the work, which surprises me sometimes, when people don't think that there should - shouldn't be thought, especially in portrait work, and a point of view.
Tavis: Well, you talk about this is in the book and it was funny when I saw it, but the opposite of your point of thought for a picture is this notion of smile for the camera, and you talk about that in this book. That is kind of funny.
Liebovitz: Well, the book is sort of a primer for young photographers. It's actually - if I ever have the opportunity to teach, it's meant as something that I can use in that way. I think it really came from our mothers wanting us to look good in our pictures and smile, but I really don't know if I believe that you should have to smile. It's a cliché, it's because we're supposed to look good. But there are real smiles, there are people who really do naturally smile, but it seems almost unnatural to ask someone to smile.
Tavis: Here's a silly question - do posed photographs drive you crazy?
Liebovitz: No, no, no.
Tavis: I mean like the grip and grin thing. I get the sense that while you put thought behind your photos, there's usually something happening there.
Liebovitz: Always.
Tavis: When I see photos of things - yeah, exactly, exactly. I get sick of seeing these photos of myself even all the time. If somebody's on the show and my photographer's running around taking pictures, he knows do not ask me to stand there next to Annie and pose for a photograph - I don't like that.
Liebovitz: Right, right.
Tavis: Photograph - you don't mind that as a photographer, though?
Liebovitz: Well, I think it has its purpose if you want to take that kind of picture. Of course, I think in this kind of situation you would probably want to do reportage, but then the set-up, the formal portrait has a great, great tradition behind it.
But I think what you're objecting to is it being done in kind of too fast of a way. But actually sitting for a portrait has its - is a very interesting traditional genre, and I'm actually proud to be part of that. And then what I love is photography's so wonderful - it has all these different ways you can use it. It can be used in a reportage style. You can use it for your family snapshots, you can use it for formal portraits - it's endless.
Tavis: There are two photos in the book that I want to go to now. One is a picture in Sarajevo that you took. Tell me about this.
Liebovitz: Well, see, this was done really at a time when I wanted to break away from the magazine work and the formal work and go off by myself, and this was during the siege of Sarajevo and I felt a little funny being the "Vanity Fair" photographer going to Sarajevo.
But I went by myself with just a couple cameras, and things happened. The story is really that things happen in front of you, and that you have no control over it. With that picture, I was on my way, in fact, to photograph Ms. Sarajevo, and a mortar went off in front of me and it killed a young boy on a bicycle.
Tavis: The next photo I want to put up is a photo in Rwanda. Tell me about this.
Liebovitz: Well, I actually went over with Susan's son David Rieff, who wanted to report on the mass murdering there in Rwanda, and it was sort of after the aftermath but there was a lot of evidence. It was after the actual event, but there was a lot of evidence left everywhere, and this was a small school on the edge of town that in one of the bathrooms you can see that people were climbing for their lives. There was just bloodstains.
Tavis: When you get exposed to work like that, when you get exposed to pictures like that, how does that impact you internally?
Liebovitz: Well, it sort of sets things straight. You come home and you can't worry too much about what's Barbra Streisand's favorite side or something. It's a great leveling device for me - or equaling device. It's important to stay well-centered and sort of - I think Rwanda was one of the worst things - definitely one of the worst things I've seen in my life, what man can do to man. It's something you never, never will - I could never forget. It was just -
Tavis: Let me close our conversation with this. I want to circle back to what you said the book is about. If you ever teach, you suggested earlier, this is the text that you would like -
Liebovitz: It's the beginning of it. It's the beginning of a voice. While I can still remember what happened.
Tavis: What does it mean that everybody nowadays has access to a camera, everybody's phone - everywhere you go, everywhere you look, somebody is taking a picture of everything or of something. What does that mean?
Liebovitz: See, I think that's great.
Tavis: Okay, that's why I ask.
Liebovitz: I just love it. I think that the iPhone is so wonderful - I've seen the most beautiful pictures of people's families and children, and it's not really any different, but people are really still photographing their families and their loved ones and their friends the same way they used to do it with cameras before. I think it's wonderful. The more, the merrier. That's great.
Tavis: I would expect that from a photographer. (Laughter) The more, the merrier. Her new book is called, simply, "Annie Liebovitz at Work." Annie, nice to have you on the program.
Liebovitz: Thank you, thank you.
Back to December 9, 2008