Annie a lady with a lens

October 2, 2008 – 9:58 pm

The Leibovitz family moved frequently with her father’s duty assignments, and she took her first pictures when she was stationed in the Philippines.

Rolling Stone magazine

When Annie Leibovitz returned to America in 1970, she worked for the recently-launched Rolling Stones magazine. In 1973, publisher Jann Wenner named Leibovitz chief photographer of Rolling Stone. Leibovitz worked for the magazine until 1983, and her intimate photographs of celebrities helped define the Rolling Stone look. In 1975, Leibovitz served as a concert-tour photographer for The Rolling Stones Tour of the Americas.

Vanity Fair magazine

Since 1983, Leibovitz has worked as a featured portrait photographer for Vanity Fair.

Lennon and Ono

On December 8 1980 Leibovitz had a photo shoot with John Lennon for Rolling Stone, promising him he would make the cover. After she had initially tried to get a picture with just Lennon alone (she would recall that, “nobody wanted [Ono] on the cover.”), Lennon insisted that both he and Yoko Ono be on the cover. Leibovitz then tried to recreate the kissing scene from the Double Fantasy album cover, a picture that she loved. “What is interesting is she said she’d take her top off and I said, ‘Leave everything on’…not really preconceiving the picture at all. Then he curled up next to her and it was very, very strong. You couldn’t help but feel that she was cold and he looked like he was clinging on to her. I shot some test Polaroids first and when I showed them to John and Yoko, John said, ‘You’ve captured our relationship exactly. Promise me it’ll be on the cover.’ I looked him in the eye and we shook on it.” She was the last person to professionally photograph Lennon — he was shot and killed five hours later.

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