NY Observer > Annie Leibovitz

Mag as Hell!

Observer Staff — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 22:51:15 -0400

Freelance Fizzle! read more »

What Makes Annie Shoot?

Choire Sicha — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 12:31:49 -0400

“I look back at it now,” Annie Leibovitz said at the Rochester Institute of Technology in 1991, “I realize that one of the things I loved toward the end at Rolling Stone were the conceptual covers.” She had left for Vanity Fair in 1983, in part to follow an art director she admired. read more »

Diane von Furstenberg: New Face of AmEx

David Foxley — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 11:06:54 -0500

This morning, American Express announced that fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg will be the new face of the company’s major forthcoming advertising campaign. The commercial, which was directed by Bennett Miller (Capote), is scheduled to air during the Academy Awards on Sunday, Feb 24. Accompanying the television spots will be a print campaign photographed by Annie Leibovitz. read more »

Hillary Backs Out of Vogue Shoot

Observer Staff — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 11:08:43 -0400

What is it with Hillary Clinton and Conde Nast?

First, the Democratic frontrunner's team successfully leaned on GQ to spike a planned story, by The Atlantic's Joshua Green, that reported on infighting within the campaign.

Now, says the Post's Liz Smith, the New York senator has cancelled a photo shoot with Vogue--Annie Leibovitz was all lined up--fearing that it could make her appear "elitist." To make matters worse, it looks like the campaign made the decision to back out a while ago, but didn't bother to tell Vogue until the last minute.

No candidate wants to look elitist, but alienating fashionistas might not be smart. As Ms. Smith puts it: "Elitists vote too, ya' know."

Bono, Graydon, Annie To Make 20 Covers For July Vanity Fair

Tom McGeveran — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 08:18:05 -0400

MemoPad is reporting that the Bono Vox guest-edited July issue of Vanity Fair, with its theme of Africa, will up the ante on that whole "collect-'em-all" cover trend:

"Sources close to the title said it could publish as many as 20 different covers, all shot by Annie Leibovitz."

Insiders seem to be telling MemoPad good things about Bono's editing abilities, though we can't help but wonder what's going on between the lines here: read more »

Annie Leibovitz, Having Seen

Observer Staff — Sun, 29 Oct 2006 18:21:34 -0500

Annie Leibovitz, the grand dame of Vogue, Vanity Fair and Rolling Stone covers, was the one facing flashbulbs. The other morning she gave a private press tour of her new show at the Brooklyn Museum.

"Walk slowly. Watch your cameras," she said. Microphone booms swung through the air, nearly knocking the photos off the wall. "Careful, we have lots of time," she said as she was followed.

Ms. Leibovitz has recently been profiled in Newsweek, The New York Times, and The Washington Post. She has a new book, "Annie Leibovitz: A Photographers Life, 1990-2005," and a retrospective of her work that will travel the world.

"It was time to look back at my work," Ms. Leibovitz said. She wore a faded black button-up shirt, tapered black jeans, and heavy work boots. "It was like being on an archeological dig finding these pictures," she said.

One entire wall was snapshots of her family at the beach, her parents in bed, her children wet with afterbirth in the delivery room, and hotel rooms with rumpled bed sheets, Susan Sontag included.

On another wall Donald Trump sat in a sports car and a hugely pregnant Ivana sported a gold lame bikini on the stairs of a gigantic jet. A portrait of Colin Powell in full military regalia hung near the Clintons on election night.

Ms. Leibovitz said the idea for the exhibit "came out of a moment," when she faced the deaths of Sontag and her father, plus the birth of her twins, by a surrogate mother.

On one wall Sontag battles cancer in a hospital bed, another shows her being wheeled on a gurney to a private plane in Seattle to be air-evacuated to a hospital in New York. A small print in a corner shows Sontag's corpse at a funeral home. She is dressed in Italian silk.

In "On Photography," Sontag had written: "To photograph people is to violate them, by seeing them as they never see themselves, by having knowledge of them they can never have.""

With every photo, regardless of the narrative, it's clear that sometimes Ms. Leibovitz was an intruder in her own life. The exhibit, which gives such a remarkable window into Ms. Leibovitz's private world, also shows the limits of that view.

Ms. Leibovitz said that she enjoys how her magazine assignments create a sense of history, but that her personal work is her strongest work, in fact because she is know to her subjects.

"Most people don't like to have their picture taken," Ms. Leibovitz said. "They have to confront themselves." Every photo involves problem solving. "It's never easy."

And with that, Ms. Leibovitz left the room, accompanied by two women in black suits. "I mean, you wouldn't expect anything less," said a reporter, who wore a sticker that read Panarama. "She's a living legend." — Kaija Helmetag

The Times Gets Renzo Piano's Glassy Shimmer

Observer Staff — Tue, 13 Jun 2006 09:10:00 -0400

Forget Hearst. Dedicated workers have begun putting up the 52-story "shimmering" glass curtain that will bedeck Renzo Piano's new beauty for The New York Times. Eventually it will soar shimmeringly over Eighth Avenue between 40th and 41st streets--bashful developer Bruce Ratner promises this will make for "an unmistakable part of Manhattan's skyline."

There will be color: A "lacy screen of ceramic rods" (under which the glass curtain sits) will bounce angular sunrays into a pretty Times rainbow. "It will seem as if the building is changing colors," gushes a press release.

Because rainbows are tricky to interpret metaphorically, Mr. Piano has also pointed out that his clear glass reinforces the two-way link between the journalists inside and their dedicated real-world clientele. (No more need for the Public Editor?)

Thankfully, Annie Leibovitz will be around, documenting the shimmering construction "on behalf" of Mr. Ratner. We hope she gets shots of those "automatically dimmable florescent lights."

-Max Abelson

The Gawker King

Tom Scocca — Sun, 02 Oct 2005 20:00:00 -0400

On Sept. read more »

Leibovitz Sees Glitz and Grit, Sontag Broods on the Big Idea

Peter M. Stevenson — Sun, 07 Nov 1999 19:00:00 -0500

Women , photographs by Annie Leibovitz, essay by Susan Sontag. Random House, 239 pages, $75. read more »

We Need More Bikinis In Xmas Cards

Ralph Gardner Jr. — Sun, 21 Dec 1997 19:00:00 -0500

In our house, the holidays start around Oct. 1. read more »