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ANNIE
LEIBOVITZ

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WORK

33=5S353!2K
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Samuel Leibovitz,

Silver Spring,

Maryland, 1972

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Marilyn Leibovitz. Dulles International Airport Virginia. 1972

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first

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vould look

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ing

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though,

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ved anyone

something

out

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ist

one

was

ed

about.

ian was

her

actor

or

It's

photo

Or
istance.

unpre-

ling

to

'

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11

PROLOGUE
NIXON'S RESIGNATION

20
30

THE ROLLING STONES

44 48
64
74

JOHN AND YOKO CONCEPTUAL PICTURES

ADVERTISING

AL SHARPTON

76

84

90
94 98
102
112

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER DANCE DEMI MOORE PERFORMANCE PEAK PERFORMANCE

WAR
O.
J.

SIMPSON

120
122

IMPROMPTU
PATTI SMITH

126

FASHION

136 142
152

158

166 168 170

172

NUDES GROUPS PRESENCE AND CHARISMA BEING THERE MY MOTHER SARAH SUSAN

HOLLYWOOD
THE QUEEN THE PROCESS
THE ROAD WEST

180

190
194

200
212

EQUIPMENT TEN MOST-ASKED QUESTIONS

PUBLISHING HISTORY

219

232
237

CHRONOLOGY ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

n>

Self-portrait,

San Francisco. 1970

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hen

was young and

just starting

out as a photographer,
a small

worked

for Rolling Stone,

which was then

It

magazine
rock and
to

published in San Francisco.

roll.
I

was devoted mostly

roll,
It

to

didn't actually

know much about

rock and

but

was grateful

be able to take pictures and see them published.

subject was.

didn't matter
a

what the

What mattered was photography. Being

all

photographer was
I

my
was

life.

took pictures

the time,

and pretty much everything

I

photo-

graphed seemed interesting. Every single time

different.

went out

to take a picture
different.

The circumstances were

different.

different.

The place was

The dynamics were

going to unfold.
Years before
rapher,
I

Every single time. You never knew what was

it

ever occurred to

me that one could

to looking at the

have a

life

as a

photog-

had become accustomed

world through a frame.

traveled
officer,

The trame was the window of our

tary base to another.

family's car as

we

from one

mili-

My father was a career Air

my mom and

Force

and whenever

he was transferred, which was often, our family of six kids would pile in the

back of the station wagon and

dad would

just drive, nonstop.

We

didn't have
I

any money, so motels were pretty much out of the quesFairbanks, Alaska, to Fort Worth, Texas.

tion.

remember driving from

11

r*

^-

'

Our

luggage was

piled

on top of the

station

wagon, and

a set of

moose

We
to see Disneyland. Ihe Disneyland people
let

us park right in front of the

entrance.
I

was

a third-year student

at

the San Francisco Art Institute

I

when my

pictures began appearing in Rolling Stone.

had enrolled there

as a painting

major in the

fall

of 1 967.

My father was by then stationed in the Philippines, at

American military base overseas. It was the main coming in and out of Vietnam. During the sumI

Clark Air Base, the largest

support base for soldiers

mer
base,
1

after
I

my

freshman

year, while

was staying with

my

family

at

the

visited Japan with

my mother
a climb

and some of

my brothers

and
first

sisters.

bought

my first
it

real
it

camera on
is

in Japan, a

Minolta SR-T 101. The

Fuji.
at

thing

did with

was take

up Mt.

Climbing Mt.
its

Fuji

something every Japanese does

I

some

point, but

harder than you might think.

I

was young, and

started

up the mountain

fast.

didn't

know about pacing. My brother Phil was even younger he was

felt like it
in

thirteen and he ran ahead of me. Phil disappeared. The camera

weighed a
while
I

ton.

It

was awkward.
I

It

got heavier the higher

we

went. After a

was pretty sure

wasn't going to
in

make

it,

but just then a group of

in single
file.

elderly Japanese

women
in

dark robes came marching along

I

They
passed Phil
at

an encouraging way and

fell

in

behind them.
his back.

We

the seventh

way

station.

He was

lying

fiat

on

When
and
get

you climb Mt.

in the

Fuji

you

stay overnight at the eighth

way

station

up

morning so

that

you can reach the top

at sunrise. Its a
I

glorious

moment.

Spiritually significant.
I

When

got to the top

I

realized

that the only film

had was the

I

roll in

the camera.

hadn't thought

much

about the film situation.

frames
I
I

photographed the sunrise with the two or three

had

left.

took

this,

my

first

experience with a camera on the road, or path, as a

lesson in determination

and moderation, although

it

it

would be

fair to

ask

if

took the moderation part to heart. But

certainly
I

was

a lesson in respecting
to

your camera.

If I

was going

to live with this thing,

was going

have to think
it.

about what that meant. There weren't going to be any pictures without
12

'4W.

.......

That summer,
in the

took pictures around the base and developed the film

base hobby shop.

When

went back

to the

San Francisco Art

Insti-

tute
I

signed up for a night class in photography. The following summer,

that's

took a photography workshop, and

1

when
I

decided that this was

what

wanted
I

to do.

Photography suited me.

was

young and unformed

person and

was impatient. Photography seemed was

isolating.

like a faster

medium

than

painting. Painting
socialize

Photography took

me

outside and helped

me.

felt at

home

in the

rooms where the photography students

wanted

worked. There were

studios.
I

a lot of

angry abstract expressionists in the painting

I

wasn't ready for abstraction.

reality.

We
can do
don't

were taught that the most important thing a young photographer

is

learn

how

to see.

It

wasn't about the equipment

we were
a

using.

remember being taught any technique.

camera was only

fill

box

that

recorded an image.
fit

We learned to compose,

to frame, to

the negative, to

everything

we saw

into the camera's rectangle.

We were never to crop our

in

pictures.
in the

We went out every morning and took pictures and developed them
day. Since the prints

darkroom the same

were washed

communal
else's,

trays
tried

and everybody's pictures were lying there with everybody

you
sit

hard to come back with something good. In the evening we would

around and discuss our work.

We were a community of artists.

Henri Cartier-Bresson and Robert Frank were our heroes. The World
if Hi

The
gave you a license to go out alone into the world with a purpose. Robert

Frank was probably the most influential figure among the photography
students.
I

A new edition of The Americans had also just been published, and
working
like

fell

in love with the idea of

Robert Frank. Driving around

in a car

and taking

pictures.

Looking

for stories.

Danny

Lyon's

book about
at

motorcycle gangs, The Bikeriders, was another important book

the time.

Lyon was not much older than we were and he had

photographed, gotten close to them.
shot in black
It

lived with the bikers he

was

this style of personal reportage,

and white with

35mm

camera, that we adopted.

I

In retrospect, there are

two photographs that represent the way

wanted
13

r-wy

>I^V*>.

<..,.

H V ta

f****

to

work

the
car.

romance of the process. One

is

the last photograph in Vie

Americans. Robert Franks wife and two small children are in the front seat
of their
It's

dawn. They're parked across from

that they've

a truck stop in Texas.

You can imagine

one of the
country as
time.
trips
if,

been driving

all

night.

The picture

is

from

Frank took across the United

he put
it,

States,

making

a record of the
it

as

he were someone
is

who was

seeing

for the first

The other photograph

It

a picture of Irving

Perms portable natural-

light studio.

was taken by

his assistant in

1967 on a desolate plain in Nepal.

The studio

is

a big rectangular tent partially

is

supported by ropes pegged into

it.

the ground. Perm's truck

parked in back of

This was the studio

it

Penn

took on his expeditions to remote places.

He used

to

photograph the

Mud

Men
in

of New Guinea and the

Quechua Indians

in the

Andes and tribesmen

Morocco.
In the
fall

of 1969,

took

my camera with me to Israel, where worked on

I
I

a kibbutz

and studied Hebrew. and

it

thought about staying there. The Vietnam

to be a
I

War was
It

at its height,

was a confusing time

young American.
a

seemed

particularly confusing to me, personally.

was

member
I

of the
that

generation that was most vocally opposed to the war, and yet
I

felt

should be loyal to
It

my

father,

who was
I

going

in

and out of Vietnam on

missions.

became apparent

pretty soon, however, that

becoming an expaa country.

triate wasn't

going to solve anything.

I

had

home and

At the

beginning of the year

went back

to the

San Francisco Art

Institute

and

began printing

my

pictures

from

Israel in the

school darkroom and going

out every morning to take

more

pictures.

The
while
I

scale

and violence of the protests against the war had increased

In the spring of 1970, students

was away.

went on

strike to protest
in

the invasion of

Cambodia. The

ROTC

building

at

Kent State University

fired into a

Ohio was burned down, and National Guardsmen

students, killing four of them.
I

crowd of
San
to

had taken pictures of antiwar

boyfriend persuaded

rallies in

Francisco and Berkeley, and

my

me

to take

them

the art director of Rolling Stone, along with

my

pictures

from

Israel.

One
was

of the pictures of a demonstration

special issue of the

at

City Hall was used for the cover of a

to

magazine devoted

campus

riots

and

protests.

It

14

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Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco, 1977

vv

the beginning of my career. Seeing that image

that will stay with

on the newsstand

is

moment

me

forever.

By the summer between had traded

my junior

and senior years

at

the art institute

my Minolta in for a Nikon, the camera of choice for professional

late sixties

photographers in the
sharp

and early

seventies.

The Nikon had

a really

35mm
I

lens.

free-flowing, beautiful lens.

I

During the

early years at
a

the magazine,
portraitist,

when

thought of myself more as a photojournalist than

usually carried three cameras

on assignments.

didn't

want

to lose time

changing lenses.

would take

35mm

lens, a 55,

and

a 105.

A
it

35mm lens provides a perspective close to what the human eye sees, and was my lens of choice. The 55 was considered a "normal" lens, very classic,
simple,

and noninterfering. The 105 was on

body with

meter and

could

use

it

for light readings.

weren't
his

made very well.

Zoom lenses were not really an option then. They When you saw a photographer with a zoom lens on
him
seriously.

camera you

didn't take

In the early years at Rolling Stone, the art

department thought nothing of

cropping photographs or cutting them up and making collages.

Or running
than
in

them very
pictures.
I

small.
it

The editors were more interested

almost as a personal triumph in 1976

in the text

took

when

the magazine
th.

devoted a whole issue to Richard Avedon's portraits of people he considered

to

be

at

the center of power in America.

They had asked Avedon

to cover the

presidential elections that

Ford but he wanted

Ther
Staff;

to

year Jimmy Carter was running against Gerald do something more ambitious, and they let him.
in a portfolio called

They published seventy-three pictures

Th

on

Ralph Nader; Ronald Reagan; the investigative journalist

I.

F.

Stone;

Wood
erased several minutes of taped conversations about Watergate.
a

Ih

magazine can be harnessed together.

it

A magazine

is

blank canvas. One

in 1976, but
if

rarely gets the opportunity to use

to the extent

Avedon did

you work

for a

magazine you're always thinking of the

possibilities.

Avedon
she

knew what
16

the potential

was and he ran with

it.

Rolling Stone

was probably

^'"'

"----^v-o-:^^:.

tSSSS!BWM8mM!spswasaaaaaMsa."

the only place he could have

zine. Flexible.

done

that then.

It

was

a relatively

young magasize

At the time,

it

was published

in a tabloid size,

almost the

of the old Life magazine. Ave dons pictures were in stark black and white,

and they reproduced well on newsprint.

Avedon was the preeminent magazine photographer of his time. his work because I studied the fashion magazines that were sold on
newsstands in San Francisco and Los Angeles.
but
I I

knew

certain

wasn't interested in fashion,

would stand

in front of the

newsstand on Las Palmas, near Musso

at

&

Frank, in L.A., for hours, looking

magazines published

in

New York and

London and

Paris

and Rome.
I

Around

this

time

was contacted by Bea

Feitler,

who was working

with Avedon and other photographers in

New

York. Bea had been an art

director at Harpers Bazaar in the sixties, following in the footsteps of the

legendary art directors Alexey Brodovitch and Marvin

Bea's teacher at the

Israel.

Marvin was

Parsons School of Design and he brought her to the

left

magazine when she was only twenty-three. Marvin

Bea and Ruth Ansel, another young designer, took

two years

later,

and

his job.

Bea knew what

What

Whe

ofM
We
That one didn't get past the editorial committee
also designed
at

M.

dance posters

for Alvin Ailey

and worked with Boris Kochno

on

his

book Diaghilev and

the Ballets Russes

tastes.

and with Helmut Newton on

White Women. She had eclectic

Bea and Avedon had edited

photographs of
his family

a collection

of Jacques-Henri Lartigue's

and friends

that they titled

Diary of a Century.

They included pages from

Lartigue's handwritten diaries, drawings,

and
f

Wh
Avedon had made
she meant
story.
is
it

up,

was disappointed, although

realize that

what

that they

had collected
a

Lartigue's material in a
it.

way

that told a

They had figured out

way

to present

17

about presentation, but probably the most important thing she taught me was to edit my photographs and to b

Bea taught

me

a great deal

invoked

in the

way they were

used.

had started out

a

pher schooled
to.

in the fine arts.

You took

young photographotograph when you felt moved

as a
art director,

But

now I was working

I

at a

magazine, with an

and

editors,

and

writers.
to

had

to learn to
I

make
for

the most of an assignment. To use th

feeling that

magazine
the

my

advantage.

had the nagging

one was

magazines were
is
I

wrong

road, that

working

selling out, but feeling guilty

not a bad thing. You should always question what you do. Sometimes

thought that
a

couldn't be doing anything better than publishing pictures in

i

magazine.

It

was such
I

powerful vehicle for them.

at Rolling

The people

worked with

Stone in those early years didn't

I

tell

me what
to

to do.

It

never occurred to them. Most of the time

could respond
I

what was happening without preconceptions or an agenda.

was never

thinking about the magazine

when I was on

the road.

was

in the thick of it,

and

made my own

decisions based on what was possible. Things happen

of you. That's perhaps the most wonderful and mysterious aspect of photography. It seemed like you just had to decide when and where to
in front

aim

the camera.

The process was linear and

traded in

it

never stopped. That's

I

still

true,

although

I've

my

need

for always taking pictures.

can

let

them

go by sometimes

now and just

be there.

18

"-"iTUHT

Jj*i*

*--

r>>

NIXON'S RESIGNATION
reverence me a for a very in instilled had Institute Art The San Francisco Frank and Robert Henri by exemplified photography, of personal kind
1

Cartier-Bresson.

also

admired the

classic

photo essays

in the old Life

magazine stories like

-

W. Eugene Smiths "Country Doctor," which was

in

shot in a

remote town

Colorado. In 1948 Smith spent a month with

calls,

the doctor.
stitching

He photographed him making house

a little girl

delivering babies,

up

who had

gotten hit in the head by a horse, ampu-

tating an old man's leg, sitting with

another old

an intimate, moving portrait. But there wasn't

essay in Rolling Stone

man who was dying. It was much of a place for the photo
in 1970.

when

began working there

The magazine

was edited by young people with newspaper backgrounds, assuming they

had any prior professional experience

nated by
text.

at all,

and the layouts were domi-

The

first

issue of Rolling Stone

had come out

in the fall ot 1967, a

lew

months
fan,

after the

Summer

of Love. The editor, Jann Wenner, was a music

and

in the early years

roll,

of the magazine's
it

life,

Rolling Stone

was mostly
It

about rock and

although

was never

just a

music magazine.
I

was

about the culture around the music. By the time

stories

arrived,

more

political

were being assigned.

It

was hard

to avoid politics in the early seven-

20

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Richard Nixon leaving

he White House, Washington, D.C

1974

* *r*

Tli
Ill

had turned dark.

music,
I'd

You could

missed the

mugged in Haight-Ashbury now. As for th most important moment. had never photographed
get
I

Jimi Hendrix or

Janis Joplin,

both of whom died in the

at

fall

of 1970.

Hunter Thompson showed up

Rolling Stone about the

same time

did.

He came

to the office with a six-pack of beer to pitch a story

about running

Aspen on the Freak Power ticket. Hunter was inventing gonzo journalism. He was very charismatic, and on some level I was in love with him. Everybody was in love with Hunter. So I just jumped in the car and
for sheriff in

went along with him

for a while.

The problem was

that

Hunter

didn't really

want anyone working with him. He got his stories by

talking to people.

sitting in bars

and

photographer

who hung around would

get in the way.

Th
Th
camera was one beautiful moonlit night when we were driving north on

Highway One with no headlights

and
let

on.

policeman stopped

us,

and when

he started to give Hunter a sobriety

.....

test,

Hunter pulled

me

out of the car

told

me to

take pictures.

When

started taking pictures the policeman

us go.

Hunter seemed

totally nuts to

me. But

was young and inexperienced

inforas

and he was seasoned. He skipped the traditional ways of gathering

mation and understood on a larger scale what was important. As crazed

he was, he

knew what he was

doing.

He taught me

that

good

reporters don t

travel in packs.
really

He never worked

with another photographer.

He

didn't

work with me

either, for that matter,

although he called

me from
in

Las

Vegas once and asked

me

to

meet him and Oscar Acosta when they were

Las Vegas.

working on the story that would become Fear and Loathing

I

didn't

make

it

out there then, but Hunter and

in 1972.

covered the presidential

campaign together

Hunter never talked

to

me

about the

stories

we

were working on. He pushed

me

away, and by pushing

me

to look at things myself.

Hunter helped teach

me away, me how to see.

he forced

On
22

one

level,

Tom

Wolfe ooerated verv much

likp

Hnntpr HiH Tom

ant

t3!l5SF

"V1X1*

'"*1

-)

.
11

!' -

fc

^:r;-;r;

<

aMMirtDTtr
-

^<

--""->*-**
i

his stories

from odds and ends moments. But

Tom
a

wasn't

at all like

Hunter
shirts,

temperamentally.

Tom was very proper. He always wore long-sleeved

and even

if

it

was ninety-five degrees out and

4

hundred percent humidity

he never sweated. Everyone was sweating through c O their clothes and

Tom

was completely

dry.

lunter sweated a

lot.

When

he wasn't sweating he was

screaming that he wasn't sweating and he thought he was dying.

I

went with

Tom

to Florida to

cover the launch of Apollo

17,

NASA's

last

manned

flight to the

moon. Thats when Tom

It

started doing the research

on astronauts

that led to The Right Stuff.

in
4

was interesting
all

to be with

Tom

because you \D got

everywhere. There were J

these I parties before

the launch.

The situation

at

the launch

site

was intimidating. The other photogra-

phers were working in teams with sixteen cameras and tripods and long, long lenses. The camera companies had
set

up kiosks where you could

borrow

lenses,
I

and

think

managed

to secure a

500mm
I

lens for the

lift-

off shot, but

didn't really

know what

to

do with

it.

couldn't decide

on the

most fundamental
faces as the rocket

thing,

which was whether

itself.

to
I

photograph the people's

went up or the rocket

had pretty much decided was going

to
I

not to shoot the

lift-off

because everyone
it

else

do

that,

but

when

it

actually occurred

was such

dramatic event that

couldn't help

but turn around and take the picture.

sion you don't realize

When
the

you watch
is. It

a launch

on

televi-

how powerful
I

sound

travels in waves.

The

whole experience
to the

is

very humbling.

found myself crying and holding on

person next to me.

stories
I

me as the moon launch or the presidential campaign. couldn't believe that my job was to photograph musicians. was a fan. When was a student I had
The
was doing back
in

San Francisco were just

I

as thrilling to

worked

for a disc jockey,

Edward
I

He had He did

the 2

AM to 6 AM slot.
"I

KSAN, a free-form radio station. would make tea and pull records for him.
Bear, at
into Aretha Franklin or Etta

great mixes.

He would segue
Have
a
slot, his

James

from Martin Luther King's

advertising in the late time

Dream" speech. Because

there was no

mixes could go on

forever.
Slick.

The

first

cover story

worked on was about Grace

Ben Fong23

Hunter Hunter
S.

S.

Thompson, Washington,

D.C..

1972
Francisco, 1972

Thompson and George McGovern, San

^^r-r-* v * !'

v <*

?t ****** "Tsnji
.i >.

'v*

8SB=aaAiw-" J "^"-"-r'-'^rtf

Hunter Hunter
S.

S.

Thompson,

California, 1972
City.

Thompson and Jann Wenner, New York

1976

"1

lorn Wolfe, Florida, 1972

iias^^SKJSJKKsarzss

UUtll.

Torres was the writer and

went with him

to the Jefferson

Airplanes house

near Golden Gate Park. Grace Slick and Paul Kantner were in one of the

back bedrooms.
sitting

took pictures while Ben was doing his interview.

I

He was

on the edge of the bed.

liked taking pictures

when

the subject was

occupied with the writer. In the photograph of Ray Charles in a hotel room
in

San Francisco you can see Ben's hand holding his microphone.
I

worked with David Felton

and

a lot.

He

taught

me

to appreciate the

Beach

Boys.

And he introduced me to comedy, to the genius of Richard Pryor and

Lily Tomlin.

Steve Martin
late into
I

David and

would

talk

through the stories

the night.

We

shared our information. Most of the time, however,

worked with the subjects by myself.

on Ike and Tina Turner,
I

When Ben
to

Fong-Torres was writing

at their

a story

went alone

photograph them

house. There were vats of white

powder

lying around.

Cameras

in all the

rooms fed back

to Ikes
I

room. There was

a lot of stuff going on, but Ike

I

was

very friendly and

I

took

my pictures and left. When

I'd

got back to the office

told

Ben some of what

seen.

don't think

told

him

everything, but
I

he put some of the details in his piece.

"Annie, this
is

When

it

was published,

got a

call:

Ike.

How

could you have done that?

I

We

have ways to take

care of people like you."

his story

decided that from then on the writer's story was

and

my story was my story.

newspaper backgrounds, are used
to to illustrate their
I

Writers, particularly writers with

working with photographers who come along with them

stories.

But a photographer
it

may see

different things than the writer does.

in a literal

don't think

matters

if

your pictures don't match

way what

the

writer brings back.

The story might be better

story, the writer

fuller with different points

that

of view.

If

it's

good

and the photographer won't be

far apart.

Nixon's resignation was the

last

story

worked on with Hunter. He had

in the

been

railing against

Nixon since 1968 and now,

summer of 1974,

the

guy was about Hunter and

I

to

be defeated.

When Nixon came

mescaline.
I

out to California in

July,

were invited

to a strange cocktail party for the press at

San

Clemente. Hunter gave

in

me some

took mescaline maybe twice

my

life,

but

when you were

in Hunter's

world you did what he did. The

27

event was

off the record, although

it

didn't

know what
strangely.

that

meant
I

then.

was taking pictures because

seemed
at

like the thing to

do and

couldn't

understand why people were looking

press secretary,
read,

me

Ron

Ziegler, Nixon's
that

was wearing shorts. There was a banner on the wall

Hang

In

There Mr. President.

Washi

Wh
there.

and

was waiting

Hunter was back

at

the hotel. Every reporter on

in the

the planet was at the

at the

White House, and Hunter was

swimming

pool

Hilton with a battery-powered

TV

set.

When Nixon

walked down

the red carpet toward the helicopter that

dozens of press

would take him away, there were photographers, most of them shooting with long lenses to
news magazines
didn't have

get in tight, since the

room

for large pictures.

Everyone pretty much moved away

after

Nixon was inside the helicopter

It

and the door was closed. The guards began rolling up the carpet.
the kind of picture that
to

wasn't

most magazines would want

to
in

run or had room

run then, but a

lot

can be told in those

moments

between the main

moments.

When
story,

it

became apparent
to
file

to the editors at Rolling Stone that

Hunter
the

was not going

a story in time,

they decided to run

my pictures as
I

along with

some

old pieces

we had published on Nixon.

had the

cover and eight pages of pictures inside. Hunter's story ran two issues later

and was pegged

a

to Ford's

pardon of Nixon.

It

was very long and included

scene Hunter concocted in which he gets out of the

swimming pool and

takes a cab to the

White House and

arrives at the

Rose Garden, where he

pushes through a throng of photographers and goes up to the helicopter

and

starts to get in. Just

then Nixon walks up. Hunter gives

a

him

nod and
fall

lights a cigarette

and watches Nixon make

It lifts

sign with his

roar.

arms and

back into the helicopter.

off with an

enormous

blast of air

from the rotors blows

all

the photographers off balance.

28

^Wtov

^ass
*

-"rjc"

STOPSWPPaKXxrrEZ

Apollo

17,

the last

moon

shot.

Cape Kennedy,

Florida. 1972

kVJ

THE ROLLING STONES

When
I

i\

first

worked

for Rolling Stone,

I

we wouldn't photograph
I

band

until they

came

to town.

hardly ever traveled.

took some pictures of the

when they came through San Francisco in 1971 and 1972, and I remember going down to L.A. when they were rehearsing. I had a cockamamie idea about photographing them in a car, and my friend the
Rolling Stones
writer Eve Babitz told

me
it

that

Tuesday Weld owned

I

a gold Cadillac.
it

So we

borrowed the Cadillac from Tuesday Weld.

the phone.

had discussed

with Mick on

He thought

was

good

idea.

He was probably
They
said

thinking about
lot,

Elvis Presley or

something. The band was practicing on the Burbank

car over.
it

and they

all

came out and looked the

was

bad

year.

"Cars are like wine"

years."

Mick explained
away.

to

me. "There are good years and bad

And they walked

Truman Capote was supposed

the magazine, and Jann said
it

to write a story

about the 1972 tour

to

for

was

OK if

went along

two or three
film that
to

cities.

Robert Frank was traveling with the band, making a

16mm

would
it,

become Cocksucker
it

Blues.

The band had commissioned him

do

but

was never

released,

presumably because of the drugs and sex that were

filmed.
in a lot

Danny Seymour, Franks friend and camera assistant, was involved of that. He died mysteriously while the film was being edited.

30

"-%

g ggggSg g:

3Sg^5

*> *,* *ir.fcmk>cssrN-

Rolling Stones fans, Cleveland, Ohio, 1975

\ J

belie

a llyi

my

said

don

mov
alwa

He\
I

Mici

Mic
imp

aph

bytl

livei

pho

in t

He

take

stra

the

the

Gal
bee

Dvi
i

phc

ne\
the

to!
abl

The Rolling Stones, Philadelphia, 1975

'

was

in

awe of Robert Frank. Here was the

I

great master.
I

couldn't

believe that
ally in the

was able

to

watch him work

for a

few days, that

his camera.
like

was actupicked up

room where Robert Frank was loading

once.
I

He

my camera
said to me,

was

terrified.

He

held

it. It

was

being with God.

He

"You can t get every

picture." That

was comforting advice. You To

its

do miss

things. You're attached to this machine.

in front

timing. Things are

it's

moving

of you and you're supposed to capture them, but

not

always possible. Robert Frank didn't seem to be missing anything, though.

He was
I

tireless.

He never stopped working.

I

guess the band liked the few pictures

called
is

took then, and three years

later

Mick Mick

and asked

me

if

would

like to

be their tour photographer.

very shrewd.

He understands

that the

documentation of the band

is

important.
a

He

kept

all

of his costumes from the tours.

And

he's

always had

photographer. Like the President or the

Queen has

a photographer.

Mick asked me
by
that.
I

to be their Cartier-Bresson. I'm not sure

I

what he meant

think he wanted
It

me to come along because was young and might

interesting mix. Certainly there were other

liven things up.

would be an

photographers

who were more

involved with music and

I

more

interested

in living the life

musicians lived than

was. Jim Marshall, for instance.

He hung out with

musicians. They were his friends.

Bob Seidemann had

photograph of

taken the famous photograph of Janis Joplin wearing nothing but several
strands of beads, with her nipple exposed.

And

it

was

his

the naked red-haired girl looking like she had been painted by Botticelli
the Blind Faith

on

album

cover.

Bob

also did posters for the Fillmore.

for years.

David

Gahr had been photographing musicians

been
at

He

loved music.

He had

the

Newport Folk

Festival in the early sixties

and had photographed

the chief

Dylan and Springsteen and Miles Davis. Baron

photographer
I

Wolman had been

at Rolling

Stone in the beginning.

I

admired these photographers, but

found concert work

at

difficult.

You

never could take your eye from the camera and you were
the lighting people,
to

the

mercy of

who were
and
if

usually on drugs. Plus you had to be prepared

be crushed by the audience. At the end of the concert they would invari-

ably rush the stage,

you were

in front

you had

to get

ready tor that.

33

\'J

Two

songs before the end,

would put

all

but one of my cameras in

my ba

and secure the flaps

and strap the bag across

my chest.

Eventually the wav

I

for several feet before that. along carried be could you but would subside, I was pushed practically where concert Franklin onto Aretha remember an

the stage.

You had
I

to just let

your body go loose and not

I

fight

it.

Nevertheless,

went

to

Jann and told him

wanted

to

go on the Rolling

Stones tour.
for

He
I

said that he couldn't guarantee that there

would be

a job
to

me when came

back, but

thought

it

was too good an opportunity

Rolling the Stones and photographed had Frank Robert miss.

now

it

was

my turn.
The band was rehearsing
of Long Island,
a break,
I

Andy Warhols place in Montauk, at the end and went out there for a month or so, and then there was
at

and the tour started

I

in June.

was very

naive.

brought

my tennis

racket with me.

lessons.
I

thought that as we went from city to city I would take tennis

getting myself into.
I

didn't

know what I was

to get a

They were paying me a

few hundred dollars a week and

but
I

was supposed

to create publicity pictures,

only

managed

couple out the

I

first

day and that was

it.

was

never up during the day again.

was always with the band.

At the time,
a

thought that the way to get the best work was to become

chameleon. To become so

would notice

much a part of what was going on that no one you were there. Of course it was unbelievably stupid of me to
become
part
of.
I

pick that situation to

did everything you re supposed to

It

do when you go on tour with the Rolling Stones.

life

was the

first

time

in

my

that

something took

me

over.

A rock and roll tour is unnatural.

The experience
is

You're

moving through time and

Th

space

extreme. There

of lost boys, but their music saved them.

It

gave them a reason to

exist.

When

they weren't on tour they didn't spend that

much time together. On the road

they worked. Mick and Keith didn't always talk to each other. Keith's guitar

was supposed

to

be amplified as loud as Mick's voice. They were caught

It

up

in a

romantic struggle.

was the

first

time in
I

my

life and
is

I'd

been
I

at

Rolling Stone for five years

34

by then that

saw how music

made.

saw

Keith Richards, Toronto, 1977

Th
tour were the songs on the next
r

album "Memory

Motel," "Fool to Cry."

e

Ihe

one of

Mick

in the elevator.

It

was toward the end of the

the ground.

He was

flying.

and he was not on From another world. He was the most beautiful
tour,

object. Like a butterfly. Ethereal. After all the

time on the road, his dancing

was very
was.

loose.

It

was almost

surreal.

was always aware of where Mick

What might have seemed like a nuisance to him became a source of comfort. To know that I was somewhere nearby. It was a subject/photographer relationship of an obsessive kind. I remember him saying that should
I

tell

him

if

wanted him
I

to

be

at a specific
I

place on the stage

at

any point

in

the show, but

to

found that too daunting.

couldn't think of anything for him

do

that he wasn't already doing.

At the end of the performances, there were two or three encores that

Th Th
concerned about putting on a good show, no matter
After the last encore,

how huge

the hall was.

when everyone
would

in the

audience thought they were

coming onstage
pails of

again, they

get out of

Dodge. Mick dumped

several
totally

water on his head every night and he would leave the stage

wet, with his eye

jumped

in the

makeup running. He wrapped himself up in towels and car. Usually the band went straight to the plane, but we were
I

staying in

town the night

photographed him

in the elevator.

The photo-

graph was taken on the way up to Micks room.

He and

were alone.
all

We
that

were on some
travel,
I

level out

of

it.

Not because of drugs, but because of

and sleep deprivation, and the exertion of the performances.

learned about power on that tour. About

how

people

in

an audience

can lose a sense of themselves and melt into a frenzied, mindless mass.

Mick and Keith had tremendous power both onstage and off. They would walk into a room like young gods. found that my proximity to them lent
I

me power
work.
I

also.

A new kind

of status.

It

didn't have anything to

do with my

It

was power by association.

shot hundreds of rolls of film on the tour.

A few pictures were published

36

Ben

V"

'

!!_ -w-r

'

"

_
MSSfi

Mick Jagger, Chicago, 1975

l^^HM

Mick Jagger, San Francisco, 1975

Keith Richards with his son, Marlon, Toronto. 1977
Mio

.r-

Ron Wood and Keith Richards, Jacksonville,

Mick Jagger,

Florida, 1975

Andy Warhol, and Fred Hughes, Montauk, New

York, 1975

^
1
!

V.VJ

Bianca Jagger, Ahmet Ertegun, Lord Hesketh, and Earl McGrath,

New

York, 1972
City, 19

Andy

Wa

Andy Warhol, Lee

Radziwill,

Truman Capote, and Vincent Fremont, New York

i-. .?,, fc.V".

1
I

t Ml

l>M**<h4M1A<

Andy Warhol, Truman Capot<\ Danny Seymour, and Robert

(C

rank,

Nuw

Orli

ms, 1972

Keith Richards, Buffalo.

Now

York. 1975

iP

work from my of exhibition 1970-1990. and book the was putting together convey how hard to tried it all was, and photographs included a few of the The across. more that tried, getting the in succeeded think I
I

but Stone, Rolling in

didn't look

at

most of them

until years later,

when

but

don't

more

seemed. pictures the romantic

I've

been on many

tour buses and at

at

many

concerts, but the best photo-

during that Rolling Stones done were work graphs I've made it than on any other subject. For me, on time more spent tour. I probably myself, and coming back, losing almost about is pictures the story about
of musicians
the

me was

that

had
I

my camera
It

by

was and what

did.

separated

my side. It was me from them.

there to remind

me who

42

*""*'

-o^,* ,.,.!.

m.

>

Mick Jagger, Buffalo,

New

York, 1975

%rj
m

JOHN AND YOKO

The picture of John Lennon and Yoko

Ono lying on

the floor together a few

first

hours before he was murdered was ten years in the making. The
took of John was
Jann

picture

my first important assignment from Rolling Stone, in 1970. Wenner was going to New York to interview him, and persuaded
I

fann that

should
else.
I

come

too,

mostly by explaining that

would be cheaper Yoko

said later

than anyone
that she

flew youth fare

and stayed with

let

friends.

and John were impressed that Jann

so famous.

someone like me photograph

to the best photographers in
treat

people

who were
at ease.

They were used

up. But

the world, and this kid

showed

John didn't

me

like a kid.

He

put

me

session

He was honest and straightforward and cooperative. That set a precedent for my work with well-known people. John, who was
someone
I

a legendary figure,
I

revered, taught

was carrying

my three

Nikons, with the

me that could be myself. 105mm lens on the body with

I

a light meter.

At one point, while John was talking to Yoko,

was using

the 105 to take a reading

and John looked up

I

at

me.

It

was

a long look.

He

seemed

to

be staring

at

me, and

clicked the shutter. That was the picture

Jann chose for the cover

when we

got back to San Francisco.

just

Ten years
out,

later,

John and Yoko's album Double Fantasy had

come

and Jonathan Cott had done an interview with John

for Rolling Stone.

44

E5HXSHS; v w-x

<k -

!CE

UiaHIU

*!_

John Lennon, New York

City.

1970

photographed them
a

at their
I

apartment

in the

Dakota

early in December,

and then

few days

later

came back with something

a kiss
I

specific in

and Yoko were exchanging

simple kiss in a jaded time.

on the cover of the new

mind. John album. It was a

in

thought about

how
Th

people curl up together

They

They
John had no problem with
pants off for
I

my idea, but Yoko said she didn't want to take her

I

some

reason. So

said,

"Oh, leave everything on."

made

a Polaroid of them lying together

and John looked

at

it

and

said,

"You've captured our relationship exactly."

He had

just spent five years

being what he referred to as a house husband, taking care of their young

son, Sean,

and the new album was

said that he

his return to a musical career.

He

took

me

aside

and

knew

that the

magazine wanted

just a picture of

him on
The

the cover but that he

wanted Yoko on the cover

too.

He

said

it

was

really important.

We
cies,

but that night, as John was returning

I

home from
a

a recording session, a
to

deranged fan shot him.

heard the news from Jann. John had been taken

I

Roosevelt Hospital, and

that

went there and took

few pictures of the crowd

had gathered. Around midnight, a doctor came out. I stood on a chair and photographed him announcing that John was dead. Then I went back to the Dakota and stood with the mourners holding candles.
The
cover with no type on
it

except for the Rolling Stone logo.

When

went
in

to

John and Yoko's apartment to show Yoko a mock-up, she was lying in a dark room. She said she was pleased with what we had done.

bed

46

ben

is a
r in

een
the
ists

her

aid,

an<?

30k

A-as

ing

enn, a

ito

wd
lair

ack

the tto )ed

John Lennon and Yoko Ono, New York

City,

December

8,

1980

iP

CONCEPTUAL PICTURES
While
it is

true that the art of photography relies

its ability, its

on knowing how

to use the

camera
doing
as
is

to the best of

also true that not

knowing what

you're

only a temporary and not necessarily crippling condition. You learn

for advice. Larry Schiller

you work, and you certainly can ask

was one of

the photographers

genius

who

has
I

who gave me useful advice worn many hats publisher,

early on. Larry

is

an eccentric
I

writer, filmmaker.
a

met him

shortly after

began working for Rolling Stone. He was making

documen-

tary about Dennis Hopper,

who

introduced

us.

Larry had worked primarily

as a photojournalist in the sixties,

and one of

his favorite stories

seat.

was about

being sent to photograph the

test

of an ejection

This particular seat was

air,

designed for a plane that was on the ground, not in the

terrific thrust.
split

and

it

required
feet in a

The

seat

was going
that he

to be

thrown up three hundred

second. Larry

knew
if

would

get only about three frames of not

very interesting film

phers, so he

he worked on the ground with the other photogra-

had

50-foot tower built and he put a remote-controlled

70mm

camera on top of

it.

The camera was normally used

for baseball games. For

photographing fast-moving objects. Larry measured the wind velocity and

calculated the likely arc of the seat,

and when the

seat shot out of the plane

he got several frames of it coming straight

48

at his lens.

rr

:'."

Larry had another story that he liked to

tell

about figuring out

how

to

photograph

a plane

exploding on the floor of the desert. They were testing

the volatility of fuel. Larry attached a

Nikon

to the vertical stabilizer

on

the

tail

of the plane.

He had

a 250-exposure

back for the camera so that he

yth

The
The
Larry had forgotten to put the film
in.

Larry was excited about those jobs.

solve.

He was

thrilled to

have a problem to
interesting. Larry

He took something
that

of minimal interest and

made

it

knew
I

you are limited only by your imagination.

have always been curious about

how

other photographers

make

their

pictures.

How

things are done.

began collecting photography books

in a serious
use
:

way

in the late seventies

carefully.
I

and

started studying the history of

the

photography more
studies,

read about Eadweard Muybridges motion

you're

with the calibrated backdrops and multiple cameras with stereoof, for

learn

graphic lenses that revealed the position

mid-gallop.
his

instance, a horses feet in

one

of

And

about Harold Edgertons development of the strobe and

centric
let

photographs of events that couldn't be seen by the naked eye a bullet

him

passing through an apple or a playing card, a

hummingbird hovering. They

;umenimarily
s about

were great moments in photography.

tiful.

Feats.

And the photographs were beau-

That galloping horse and Edgertons photograph of a bullet slicing the

in half are

Queen of Hearts
I

romantic pictures. Poets took those pictures.

skills

eat was

had rudimentary technical

when

started working.

had never

shot in color
-quired

when

Rolling Stone began printing four-color covers in 1973,

although by then Jann

eet
in a

Wenner had

given

me

the

title

"chief photographer."

When
5

shot in black and white, the printer

who

processed

my

film,

Chong
The

of not

Lee, saved
otogra-

me. He would inspect the film under a red

until

light in the

darkroom
color.

and push
exposure
les
.For
I

it

he saw something. But he couldn't help

with color transparencies.

me with
first

is

critical

One of the

cover pictures

took in color was a backlit photograph of Marvin Gaye in Topanga Canyon

sunset.
It

nd a :ity
plane

at

looked gorgeous

when we were

there.

The Kodachrome

trans-

ie

parencies looked great too. They were fine-grained, saturated, very beau9

V.VJ

Tess Gallagher, Syracuse,

New

York, 1980

Robert Penn Warren,

Fairfield,

Connecticut, 1980

tiful.

But the picture was

a disaster

when

it

was published. The ink sank

into

up. All you could make out was the clogged everything and the newsprint no There was detail in his face. silhouette. in was Gaye sunset. Marvin Stone, I began adding strobes Rolling at process printing to To survive the

This

Th
were they Stone Rolling of pages newsprint
realize

muted and

off- register.

didn' t

how

bright

my
It
It

transparencies actually were until

in Japan.
I

my

first

book was
to

published, in 1983.

was printed

didn t have anything

that
it

do with

choosing the printer.

Japanese printers are
a palette that
I

never occurred to

me

made

a difference that

known

for bright colors

and

that Italian printers have

can make photographs look like Renaissance paintings.

copies of the

When
when

saw the

first

book was shocked. The

I

printer

had reproduced
fine

the transparencies in a literal way.

The pictures

that

had seemed

they were printed on newsprint looked garish on coated paper.

When
much

photographed the poet Tess Gallagher on the horse,

It

didn't have

control over the strobe.

lights

her and then

falls off in
it

the backa

ground. There was just one umbrella light on a stand and

effect.

produced

crude

Other photographers

Diane Arbus, for instance had used straightthe look they wanted. Arbus
cata-

on

light in a

much more sophisticated way to get

and
haci studied

was

a great

admirer of Weegees pictures of crime scenes and various

strophic events

them

carefully.
at

Weegee used an on-camera

Weegee was

flash out of necessity.

He was photographing
was impossible
to rely

night and in dark rooms and

light. a

other places where

it

on natural

newspaper photographer and he didn t care about the pictures being

pretty.

Arbus discovered that Weegees work with the

thing you wanted to see and also revealed
I

flash

brought out the main

hadn't anticipated.
I

moments you

wasn't thinking about any of this at the time, of course.

a light

was

just

throwing

up

haphazardly and hoping the picture would

come

out.

That portrait of Tess Gallagher and the one of Robert Penn Warren are
it

Ih
were masks
52
all

over her house and coat racks

full

of clothes. She wanted

to

l:

-*_-,

ilii-nii- ~,.
.

ank
was

into

the

robes:
color,

nd
it

on
1

the

dick

do
e

with

that

Wh(

prodi.
ie

when

idn't h.

the bad

j straigh
:.

Arbi

ious

cata-

m-came
rooms and

er pf ;ing

them

.nticipa

jt

throv

Warren
s

are

rote a

? ack-

fr

ranted

Bette Midler,

New

York

City,

1979

vv

et

Meryl Streep.

New

York

City. 1981

Wh
were with Gallagher you were
in

her world and you could see the

is

way her

imagination worked. The Tess Gallagher portrait

the beginning of placing

my subject

in the

middle of an

idea.

Robert Penn Warren had been writing about death. His poems are
infused with an awareness of mortality, with the fleshiness and fragility of
living things.
a tree reading
I

The and

first

time

visited him,

photographed him lying under

Conventional writers' poses.
a

in his office with his books.

I

knew
I'd

I'd

missed the picture, so

called

him up

few days

later

and

told

him

like to

come

back.

When
under

drove up, he was standing

I

in the

window
his

of his bedroom, staring out at me.

shirt off.
I

asked him to

sit

on the bed and take

wanted

to see

his skin, to see his heart beating, his lungs

shirt

pumping. He didn't care whether the

then, very distinguished, with

was on or

off.

He was
and

seventy-five
his

many awards

for his novels

poems,

and he was

at

peace with himself.

for the portraits of Tess Gallagher

The basic ideas

and Robert Penn

If I

Warren came from reading their poems, from doing my homework.

preparing to photograph a dancer,
to the musician's record.
I

were
listen

would watch him dance.

in the

would

Somewhere
It

raw material was the nucleus of

idea.
It

what the picture would become.

simple. There's a case to be

didn't

have to be a big

could be

made that the

simpler the idea the better. Putting

for instance.

blue paint

on Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi,

The

first

Blues

Brothers album had gone double platinum, and they were taking themselves

very seriously as musicians.

remember

Belushi saying, "Did you hear

Aykroyd on the harp? Better than Paul

of hand.
it
I

Butterfield!" Things

were getting out

was thinking of them more

as actors

and comedians and I thought

would be funny
I

to paint the Blues Brothers blue.

writer,

told

Aykroyd and the

that Belushi
in

Tim White, what had

I

in

mind. Neither of

them thought
in a

would go along with

on

it.

We took the photographs

room. In most

bungalow

West Hollywood

that looked like a motel

a bed.

of the frames they're just horsing around

Jumping up and down

I

with their sunglasses on. Their faces aren't painted. Then

artist to

asked the makeup

put the blue paint on and

managed

to shoot eight or nine frames

55

The Blues Brothers (Dan Aykroyd and John Beh

Hollywood. 1979

&

Steve Martin. Beverly

Hills.

1981

stalked Belushi before

to

off.
I

He

didn't think
lot

it

was funny at

all.
I

He didn't speak
was young and

me

for six
I

months.

did a

of that kind of thing

it

when

cocky.

to do how know even wouldn't

now.

lying in the roses was also Midler Bette of picture the of source The which Rose, was The loosely based out, coming movie a simple. Bette had character, main Rose. Having her the played She Joplin. on the life of Janis create a to background way good a like for the seemed roses of bed
lie

on

cover,

although when

look

at the picture

now,
is

it

seems

little

rough
angle.

in

underlit, She's execution. terms of

and her body

at

an awkward

We

were winging

it

then.

We

hadn't thought about de-thorning the roses

until

arrived, Bette before so or an hour

V.

and we barely got them

all

clipped off in

1 i * *

^w

*-

r^

""

We
New York.
I

elain's studio in

didn't

have

my own
how

studio. At that point in

I

my

career,

it

was

helpful to rent other photographers' studios because

it

could see

and there out was equipment of what kind

I

was used.
time to accommodate
to

had begun using

a 2

A x 2 A camera by
l

this

the

After we Stone. moved Rolling of pages the of shape change in the

York, in 1977, the

New

magazine had been redesigned and had become

larger format

wider.
It

Almost
was

a square.

The

camera produced

a square negative.

also

more appropriate
was
in

for shooting prearranged, set-up portraits.

lit,

If

the subject

one place and could be

there really was no point

in

taking the picture with a

35mm camera.
detail,

The

35mm
a

cameras were small and

quickly. But the

portable and appropriate for reportage, for

2
l

moving around
mixed

negative produced

more

which was

blessing for me. You

yth

Th
masked
a lot of technical inadequacies.
in

The picture of Meryl Streep

didn't start out well.

whiteface was

Meryl had only recently

made during a session become a movie star.

I

that

had

already done a fashion sitting with her for Vogue,

and

Life

had used

head

shot taken from that sitting

on

their cover a

few months

earlier.

Francesco

Scavullo had just shot her for the cover of Time. This
for

round of publicity was

with
all

The French Lieutenants

Woman. Meryl was uncomfortable

the

58

lidn'ti

young ai

osel

Ha\ing l

>und

for

tie rou$ri

rd angle

erosesu
lipped

Alex

omt in
I

coulc

nmodate

ov ed

to J

ome

negat:

ortrai

,s

no

poir.

ere small
;klv.

Bi

me. for lg

d and

#
i\

negati

sessic

ivie

star.

id

used

a h^

franc
lier.

hie

Whoopi Goldberg,

Berkeley, California. 1984

Keith Hanng,

New

York

City,

1986

Sg

3SSSH

.I..3SQ1
aaJ-saaustKsr. -.v.v.'S

attention she

was getting and she cancelled the was

finally

first

appointment
for

for the

shoot, but she

persuaded to come to
in

my studio

two and
want

a half
to

hours one morning. She came

and talked about how she

didn't

be

anybody, she was nobody, just an actress. There were a

lying

lot

of clown books
I

around the studio and some white makeup

James Taylor or John Belushi.
I

left

over from an idea

had

had
to

for either

told

Meryl that she

didn't have

be anybody in particular, and

suggested that
set

maybe she would like to put

She had a role to
play.
It

on whiteface. To be a mime. That

her idea to pull at her face.
Steve Martin

her

at ease.

was

had

just played the lead in Pennies

from Heaven when

photographed him and he had developed

he's

his tap-dancing skills. That's

why
and

dressed in the white tuxedo and

tails.

He was

collecting

modern

art,

he was particularly proud of a big Franz Kline painting he had just bought.

When
I

he showed
I

me around
at
I

his

house he told

me
It

that he

saw himself

in

the picture.
.
'

looked

it

and saw what he meant.

like

was

as

complicated as

he was.

decided that

could paint him black,

I

one of the brushstrokes,

to work.
it
I

and put him

tried

in the painting.

wasn't sure this

was going

had

something similar one time before with Mick Jagger and

I

had been

a disaster.

had wanted

to put

Mick

in a

Turner painting.

late seascape.

The person who came

to paint

him took about

and then

four hours and

when

she was

finished he stood for thirty seconds

I

said he

was

leaving.

hired a scenic painter from the Disney studios to paint Steve Martin.
at

She came over to the house, looked

tux,

the painting, looked at Steve in the

and

in

about two swishes she had painted on the black brushstrokes.

Then she
perfect.

said she

had

to

go back

to

work and she

left.

The brushstrokes were

She made that picture.

portrait of

Ihe
off.

Whoopi Goldberg was shot just as her career was taking She had had a big success with a one-woman show at a club downtown in
I

New York. had looked at some grainy tapes of her act and was drawn to one
of her characters, a
little

black

girl
_

who

thinks that she's white underneath.

Ihe

little girl
I

bathes in Clorox to

very good.

wanted

to paint

Whoopi white and

in a

let

the paint drip off her.

Then

thought she should be

white bath.

photographer

who worked
61

Milk

Whoop

We
Whoop
got
in.
I

didn't

know how
up

it

was going to look, but and scrubbing

It

kind of thought

that

she would be

sitting

in the bath

herself.

She

sat back,

and

suddenly we had

a very strong image.

was a

total surprise.

exaggerated or consider visually people extreme that pictures my of Most

like

Whoopi

lomlin ot Lily portrait with hair rrom the or bathtub, the in

my
a

hairbrush under her

arm were made with

It

comedians, although one was

collaboration with an artist, Keith Haring.

zine in Florida that
I

was commissioned by

a magaKeith

went out of business before the picture appeared.

I

and had talked on the phone and

asked him

if he

had ever painted himself.

He said no, although

him
to paint

a couple of years earlier

Andy Warhol had arranged for

for me.

Grace Jones and to have Robert Mapplethorpe photograph her

when

Keith had finished.

We

decided that he would paint his torso

We

Whe
black lines in less than forty-five minutes.

Then he painted

his

upper body

in

about

five

minutes.

When

he came out of the dressing room he was wearing

it

white painters' pants, but

just

seemed obvious

to

both of us

at that point

that he should paint the rest of him.

It's

hard to paint yourself. Keith did only the front.

It

loved the way he

painted his penis.

was so

witty,

with an elongated

line.

The

pictures took

only a few minutes, and

when we
Th

finished, Keith didn't

I

want

to stop.

He said
Square,

he

felt

dressed and wanted to go out.

suggested that

we go

to

Times

The
over
I

told

my

assistants that

we were going
I

to have to
in

work

fast

because
statue

we would probably get

of George

arrested.

photographed Keith
in front

back of the
It

M. Cohan

in

Duffy Square and

of a bank.

was

a cold

winter night and this painted, naked guy was walking around, and nobody,
including a couple of policemen
62

who were

there, paid

any attention

to us.

>*^>
4

!** VI**'* 1*

4*"

'

_v

n'

Mna HUtt*'"r.M*!

--

'

te reallv

Creating a portrait with a strong concept was in part a response to taking

so

tub.

many

cover pictures for Rolling Stone.

I

thought a cover picture should

difficult to

it.

We he.

have an idea.

still

do, although its

become more and more

and what The

do

and Wb
the

conceptual covers. Covers have to

sell

magazines, and publishers are always

isn't.

trying to figure out what's effective

great master of the

satb

conceptual cover was the art director George Lois,

who

created so

many
was
i

legendary covers for Esquire in the

illvextrc

sixties.

When Muhammad

Ali
title,

convicted of draft evasion and stripped of his heavyweight boxing

Lois

hairfron

had him photographed

out of his body.

as the

martyred

St.

Sebastian, with arrows sticking

in a

lghonev
Jbvan:
peared

He drowned Andy Warhol

interested
in,

can of Campbell's soup.

In the early days at Rolling Stone, the subject of the cover

was whatever

Jann

Wenner was

or whatever story

some

writer had finally

inted h

finished.

Now

covers are always pegged to something.

And

who's on the
all

J darran
tioto.

cover makes a big difference. For a while, Jann thought that

the Rolling

Stone covers should be shot against a seamless white backdrop, in the style

of Richard Avedon. There

i

is

a recurring idea that there should be

all

some kind
that

torse

of formula for the

meone's
li

cover that

the covers should look the

are taken.

same and

familiarity sells.
the room

Not many chances

After the Rolling Stone cover picture of John

upper
felt
le

and Yoko was published,

that

it

was important

to try to keep

up

that kind of intensity.

The next

We

cover subject was Bruce Springsteen, whose album The River had just
.

come
could

at that p

out.

The River

is

a very

moving
I

set

of songs about memories of better times

ice.

and about
ed the

human

fragility.

photographed Bruce skating on

He

barely ice skate, but he did

it. I

was thinking of that beautiful late-eighteenthartist

picture

century painting of the skater by the Scottish

picture

Henry Raeburn, but

the
too.

io stop.

works on several

levels.

Simple portraits can convey concepts

Times fc
i

Cartier-Bresson took a photograph of Giacometti running in the rain with

his coat pulled

pretty
II

over his head.

He

looks like a Giacometti sculpture.

car on

rk

fast

I*

ckofthe^
was a
no

k
ld ,

it

and

t0

mention

63

ADVERTISING
Advertising work did not

come

naturally to me.
I'd

It

was against the

I

grain of

the West Coast art-school philosophy that

for

started out with.

I

had worked
jobs,
1

magazines for almost

I

fifteen years before

I

took
at

few advertising

and

took those

first

jobs simply because

a contract with
at a
\

was

loose ends. In 1983,

left

Rolling Stone

and signed

lanity Fain

thinking that the range

cultural interests.

of subjects would be broader

magazine with wider

But the editors of Vanity Fair didn't use

the covers. Ruth Ansel,
aside

me much.

Irving Penn was doing

who was

the art director at Vanity Fair then, took

me
It

and said
to

that

should be spending some of

It

my

time on advertising.
that

was

OK

do advertising. More than OK.

photographer
in

was something

you did

if

you were
five
I

a professional

New

York. Ruth said that twenty-

percent of

my work

should be advertising.
this.
I

was rather shocked by

had been proud of myself

I

for not taking

to

ad work. Recently, as a favor to Sissy Spacek,

had taken

commission

do the cover of an album

Coalmincrs Daughter, and
I

oi
I

country music she made

I

after the success ot

I

was miserable.

was getting paid and

I

telt

that

had
I

to

do something
I

that pleased Sissy.

She never said

had

to please her,

but

thought that
tried

should, and that threw me. But Ruth was persuasive,

and
64

some

advertising jobs, only to find

them

as confusing as

had

1k

:<**>

tttf*

u th

John Geese, London, 1990

Tony Kushner,

New

York

City,

1992. Joan Didion and Quintana Roo Dunne, New York

City,

City, 1989

Andree Putman, New York

1989. William Wegn an and Fav

Ray,

New

York

City, 1988

..

imagined they would

be.

Attempting to follow a clients directions altered

-

my point

of view.

It

just felt

wrong.
in

Tina Brown took over as editor of Vanity Fair

to work, so
I

1984 and really put

me

didn't

need other jobs

to

fill

up

my time,

but late in 1986 an art

director

from Ogilvy and Mather, Parry Merkley, asked

for

me
I

to

shoot a

new

campaign he was developing

was going freedom
to

American Express. He
a portrait
I

said this

campaign

be

different.
I

It

was

campaign and

would have the

to believe,

to

do what

wanted

to do.

told

him

that

was hard

but he was persistent. Ogilvy and Mather wanted pictures of famous people

and very
19

little

copy. Just the subject s

name and
its

the line

"Cardmember

since
it
1

_" and

the words

"Membership has

privileges."

The simplicity of

appealed to me.

We

put in writing as part of our deal that no one except

set.

Parry Merkley could be on the

No one from American

I

Express and no
* *

one

else

from the agency.

Parry asked

me how much
time did
I

time
It

needed with the

first

subjects, so that they

I

would know what was required.

that.

was the

time

had thought about

I

How much

need
to

to

make

a portrait?

came up with

the

formula of
scouting.

at least

two days

work with

a subject, in addition to location

>"*

A day for meeting them and a second day for shooting or finishing any shooting that had started the day before. When you first meet someone
you're just trying to be nice

and picking up you wouldn't

clues for a picture.

You

get ideas

when

you're with

them

that

get simply

by reading about them

Th
The

Th
about what
days.
I'd

k
full

learned.
itself

It's

not as

if

we were

taking photographs for two

fact, as
I

The shoot
I

could be very quick. In

I

refined the system

over the years,

realized that

usually needed only two half days. People,

understandably, often don't want to

commit

to

two
in.
I

full

days,

and the point

reserve

was only

to

have two separate sessions to work

I

now sometimes
it.

the second day as a backup, but

don't necessarily use

The subjects
a
list

American Express ads were chosen simply by making of the top people in a field. Parry would ask them if they wanted to
for the

67

ti

Evander Holyfield, New York

City,

1992

****

L*:

participate,
for the

and they usually said

yes.

The only requirement the agency had

photographs was that they be vertical and

their

fill

a page.

They would
M
* *

(i
1

sometimes appear on

own

page, with type

on the opposite page, or

I

they would share a page with type.

Its

I *.!

hard for

me

to

frame subjects
horizontally.

in a vertical format.

It

doesn't

seem
I

natural.
a

The eye sees

My

early
in a

photographs were taken with

35mm lens, which pretty much takes 35mm lens at someone's head takes in
it

whole scene.

When
is

you aim

a
X
: i

a little bit of what

to the left

and

*f

ft

little bit

of what

is

to the right.

The horizontal image produced by the

35mm
a
:

lens

is

good

for telling a story.

vertical

image by

its

nature

is

going to be a

more formal photograph.

The American Express shoots were more elaborate productions than
I'd

been involved with before, with much larger budgets. The magazines
a different beast.

were pretty tight with money, but American Express was

Suddenly
fly to

was spending money

like I'd

never spent
it

money

before.

would
I'd say,

Detroit to shoot Elmore Leonard, and

I

would be snowing, and

"You know what,

doht

really

want

to shoot here today. Lets

a

go to Florida."
It

And we'd go to Florida. You doht do that on Money affected my relationships with the
paid,

magazine budget.

was

great.
id

subjects also.

They were being

to

and they were very cooperative. Collegia! even. They wanted

do

pod job.
The
first sitting

was with Tip

O'Neill,
to

who had just

subjects,

retired as Speaker of
!

the House. Parry

Merkley wanted

convey the idea that the viewer was

getting an intimate, privileged

sitting

view of the

and we shot O'Neill

on

beach chair

in the sand, in bare feet,

with his pants legs rolled up.

to him.
by.

He was disheveled and there was a cigar stub stuck in the sand next He gazed to the side actually, at two women who were walking
problem with the photograph was that
it

My

didn't look natural.

It

was

overlit.

An
not. to

intense strobe

is

good

for a very graphic image,

which

this

image was

We

shot O'Neill in bright sunlight and the strobe had to be intensified

It

be brighter than the sun.

started looking like Christmas.

The photograph of Willie Shoemaker and Wilt Chamberlain was taken

on the beach
at

Malibu. The sky was bright, but

set the f/stop

down

so that

69

picture worked The because than darker the scene looked was setup the like something but outside were We formally. w as shot very circus pictures-Tom of thinking IhumlD was studio.
it

really was.

it

you

Vk

mild do

in a

with the giant.

picture Cleese John The
is

something he and

came up with when

to

we met
women's

at his

house

in

London.

My
It's

first

idea

was

photograph him
comedians

in

clothes,

and

he said fine.

a tradition for English

to for

dress in drag.

The

stylist,

Lori Goldstein, ran

around London looking

that he imagined mentioned himself John then But heels. oversized high bird. I thought that hanging big like a goalpost a from hanging upside down

upside

down from

a tree like a bat

would be more

interesting,
to

and the

next

day we were

looking for the right tree,

which turned out

be harder than

and lot of trees had London a in storm huge a been had we thought. There It had a great silhouette dead. was use to decided we tree The blown down.
because
I

it

didn't

have leaves. Since John couldn't really hang from the limb
it

wanted

to

photograph his weight would have brought

down

hired

a sixty-foot crane and hauled

him

into position. John couldn't stay up there

t

his rib cage. He against wasn' pressing was harness the because very long brought him out. We dowi pass to started and red turned He air. any getting

and then had him go up one more time.

Between 1987 and 1992

shot a hundred and three portraits for that

It

first

American Express campaign.

was extremely successful and won

tell
It

several

awards. The pictures had been allowed to

a story with very

little

type on

them.

learned so
ideas.

much on

that campaign.

was a great way

to experiment

and explore
than
I

American Express gave

me

a larger canvas to work on

I

had ever had before.

And
all

there was a personal benefit.

I

didn't have a
for

very good credit rating after

those years at Rolling Stone.

had applied
I

an American Express card and been rejected several times.

cash.
in

operated with

The agency found out about

this

when
I

left

several thousand dollars Strings were pulled

an envelope in a phone booth while

I

was on a shoot.

and

finally got

my card.
all

The Gap campaign ran about the same time that the American Express

campaign
70

did.

The Gap pictures were

black-and-white studio

portraits.

Ella Fitzgerald,

Beverly

Hills,

1988

Willie

Shoemaker and

Wilt Chamberlain, Malibu, California, 1987

That was the basis of the campaign

at first.

shot

them

in

my

studio on

Vandam

Street,

which was

in

an old industrial building with glass windows

in

lining the exterior walls,

I

and

Los Angeles.
as a studio portrait photographer.
I

had never thought of myself

can
to

be graphic, and the

rely

Gap photographs

are graphic, but in a studio

had

on the
I

subjects' ability to project themselves.

When

began the Gap

campaign

hadn't yet developed a

I

method of
I

establishing a relationship

with a subject.
a situation

thought you

just looked.

didn't

know that you

can control
out.

by the way you

is

talk to

someone. You can draw them

An environment
somewhere.
possible
I

important for

my

pictures.

like placing the subject

My first choice is the subjects own environment, but if that isn't

them.
I

will set a stage for

I

would use
I

backdrop
felt

if

the weather

turned bad and

couldn't shoot outside, but

never

they were going to

be the best pictures. The

Gap campaign

forced
I

me to work consistently with

With
in the

backdrops and to learn

a white

how to

use them.

didn't use a white backdrop.

backdrop

there's

nothing to hold on to

photograph but the

subject

and the graphics. Avedon owned the white backdrop. Irving Penn's

gray backdrop was

more appealing

to

me, although

it

turns out that Penn's

fell

backdrops weren't really gray.

off white

He

shot in black and white and the light

I've

backgrounds, making them look gray.

It's

borrowed

that look

and

made gray mine.

I still

my white.
in the studio as
it.

think of

my work

very straightforward and

direct.

And I'm still

with

not totally comfortable with

But every so often

so simple.

see

someone

whom I'd like to do that sort of picture. Its have. A nice style to have in your back pocket.

It's

a nice tool to

73

ALSHARPTON
The
preaching in a Pentecostal church

when he was

four years old. In the

sixties,

he performed with Mahalia Jackson on the gospel-music

circuit. Later, he

was James Browns tour manager.

When

Ronald Reagan asked Brown

to the

White House on Martin Luther King s birthday, Brown took Sharpton

but
first

along,
hair-

he took him to his hairdresser. Sharpton has worn a processed

style like

James Browns ever

Tina Brown asked

since.

He

says

it

symbolizes their bond.

Fair,

When
organizer.

me to
to

take Sharpton's picture for Vanity

activist

he

was well known as a flamboyant and controversial

and community

We

had arranged was going

I

meet

at a

church
late.
I

in

Harlem, but Sharpton

sent

word

that he

to be
I

an hour

asked
at

why and was

told he

was having

his hair done.

said

would meet him

I

the salon.

We didn't talk
the

about taking pictures there until

His hair was
still

arrived

and saw him

I

in the chair in curlers.

being worked on

when

left

to

go to the church where

The
Their

.That

was annoying. Monthly magazines cant compete with the

dailies.

74

wmm^mm

The Reverend

Al Sharpton,

Brooklyn,

PnmaDonna Beauty Care New York. 1988

Center

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER
The portraits
first

of Arnold Schwarzenegg<

le

worked together in 1975,

when he was competing

in the

Mr. Olympia
He'd

body-building contest in South Africa.

already been Mr. Olympia
building.
basis for
five

Arnold was twenty-eight.

retire

times and he was about to

from body

He wanted
George

to get into films.

The 1975 Mr. Olympia contest was the

Iron, the

Butler's

documentary Pumping

movie

that popu-

Butler audience. wider to a Arnold introduced and building larized body

was a friend of Jann Wenner's.

don't
is

remember

exactly, but

assume
I

that
can't

my

trip to South Africa was what

now known
it. I

as a press junket.

imagine that Rolling Stone would have paid for

do remember

that Butler

was always filming when

Arnold
is

was trying

to

work.

the center of Pumping Iron in every way. In terms of the narrais

tive of the preparation for the contest, he

the guy everybody else has to

beat,

which they pretty much know they

can't.

As

a character, he
Full

is

aggres-

Witty. Intelligent.

of himself.

He somehow makes what

although
it

is

a rather freakish scene

seem almost normal,

I

never seemed normal to me. Steroids were legal then.

had

just

spent several weeks on tour with the Rolling Stones, where

the male sexual ideal. Being

Mick

Jagger was

around

all

those super

pumped-up guys made

76

.1

H(

bo.

LSt

opu-

lut

thai

can't

Sutler

iarr-

ias

to

If

)f

ft

Arnold Schwarzenegger, Pretoria, South Africa. 1975

Arnold Schwarzenegger, Pretoria, South Africa, 1975

me
still

feel like

Diane Arbus.

It

didn't help that

we were

in

South Africa, which

It

had apartheid. There were separate bathrooms for blacks and whites.

was an uncomfortable situation.

Arnold was central

from
hotel
it.

to the situation

and

at

the

same time somehow aloof

He was very shrewd about

the

the competition. The photograph in the

room was taken

morning after he won. He was sharing a room with

his friend

Franco Columbu,

who came
in bed.
I

in

second

in the final
I

pose down.
decided that
that was,

Arnold and Franco were very competitive and brotherly and

I

wanted

to

photograph them

had

in

mind something
their

in retrospect,

along the lines of Bruce Weber. The magazine used one of

the photographs of
pillows.
It

them horsing around. Standing on

silly

heads on their

was more

than

erotic.

They had

their

underpants on for that

shot, but

Arnold was also walking around naked that morning. Like most

who love their bodies, Arnold didn't mind being naked. Two years later, when had to photograph Dolly Parton and needed an interesting background, asked Arnold to pose with her. She was a much
models or athletes
I

bigger star than he was.

Most people had never heard of him

it

then.

was

thinking of chopping off his head in the frame, but

became

moot

point

because Dolly kept standing in front of him. In the portrait

of him are his flexed

all

you can see

arms and

legs. He's furniture.

"I

Arnold told the Pumping Iron filmmakers that

was meant to be more than
just

got the feeling that

I

an average guy running around, that

I

was

chosen to do something special.

people, dictators
later
1

was always dreaming about very powerful

and things

like that.
I

he was the Terminator.

shot

Or some him for the

savior, like Jesus."

Ten years

Vanity Fair Hall of

Fame

in

We
bring
it

well,

along, not thinking

up.
It

much about
It

it.

couldn't believe

it

when
white

the horse

showed

looked

like

Arnold. Arnold's thigh

I

in those

pants looks like the horse's thigh.

was not a picture that

liked right away,

because
the
just

it is

primarily about form and

I'm reluctant to have form impose

is

meaning on
begun
to

a picture. But in Arnold's case form

also content.

had

do the black-and-white Gap

in that style.

advertising campaign then and

was working

79

the of end the By

nineties,

Arnold was

becoming

a political figure.

He

businessman and was had served as chairman of the President's

a successful

first George Bush. When the under Sports and Fitness Physical Council on house, he has a he was where very Valley, sentiSun in him photographed I of the things we had done me reminding kept He mental and nostalgic. I think. He was about to have looming, was Mortality a in the past.

together

They
Arnold was
just about to turn fifty
lost weight.

trimmed down and

the shoot he
freezing
didn't

body had changed. He had When we went up on the mountain for

and
his

want

to take his shirt off.

it

He

said

it

was because

it

was

up

there,

which

was, but

think

it

was because he had

use their bodies

decided

not to rely on his

body

to sell himself. Actors

who

in movies

you

off. With most people, shirts their take to asked being are accustomed to will say no, but actors they because shoot, the before up this don't bring

whose

persona like to be warned. professional their of part bodies are

Sylvester Stallone.
I

learned this from

asked him to take his

if
I

shirt off in the

it

that explained he and shoot of a middle

had mentioned
else
it is

earlier he

would have waxed

his

body and done whatever

they do to prepare.
his muscles
at ease.
1

When

Arnold was standing there

a
bit,

in just his T-shirt,

he flexed

and posed

but

chose a picture of him with his muscles

less

thought he looked more modern and

contrived that way.

is

Arnold mind. to Riefenstahl Leni brings picture The

career was
built

Austrian. His

on willpower.

It's

a heroic pose, redolent of German

Roman-

ticism. But the biggest influence for the picture

lot

was Sun Valley

is

ski photos.

of what happens in a shooting

a ski resort

is

based on what

available.

Sun

Valley

was developed as
of the Union

by Averell Harriman, the chairman of the board

Pacific Railroad, in the 1930s.

The Union

Pacific tracks ran

through the northern part of the United States,

for a

and Harriman was

looking
winter.

way

to

make

the trip
little

more

attractive to passengers

during the

Alpine skiing was a

known

sport in the U.S. then, but Harriman had

discovered European ski resorts

when

he was on business

trips abroad.

He

West American the explore asked a knowledgeable Austrian count to

a

and propose
80

spot that could be developed along the

lines ot

St.

Montz

Sl

"S.%

in

and

ish.

ervsc

hade
I

to

ha-

ic val

i-

Her

n tain
eitv

dec:

nmc
tpeo utac
rarne,

)ffin

arlier

prepa

muse
tea^c

an.f

^oma

totos.

Valk

e boar

vvinte

* an k
biw

#
Arnold Schwarzenegger, Malibu, California, 1988

Ar

liw

or Kitzbi'ihel.

The count suggested

to call
it

remote sheep-herding area of Idaho

Valley.

and somebody decided

Sun

Union
lifts,

Pacific

transformed the

area with Tyrolean architecture, invented chair

ski instructors

and imported Austrian

first

and musicians

in

Bavarian costumes. The

guests were

Astors and Whitneys and Rockefellers and a large contingent from Holly-

wood. The lobby of the Sun Valley Lodge

stars
I

is filled

with photographs of movie

Errol Flynn.

on the
at

slopes.

Gary Cooper, Clark Gable, Ingrid Bergman,

I

looked

them over and over when

this

was

there.

Arnold talked about

I

shoot

later as

an extreme experience, although

think he just liked to

tell

the story in an amusing way. There was a blizzard

in the

and we had a tiny window

the mountain.

storm

to take a helicopter

up

to the top of

Arnold was leaving Sun Valley the next day and we weren't
stylist,
I

going to have another chance. The

with
us.

Lori Goldstein, wouldn't go up

She thought we were crazy.

in the

shot the picture from the ground, on

as

my stomach

snow.

was about

low

as

could go without digging a

ditch to shoot from, like Riefenstahl did for the 1936 Olympics.

83

DANCE
My
mother was a dancer.

Some

of my most vivid childhood memories

are

later, I photographed Years poses. striking beach, of her dancing on the photography, in interest my precedes dance in her that way. So my interest

Morsan
Graham when I was
young, especially the

famous ones of Graham

kicking

World.
I

When
closely

became aware of who

Barbara Morgan was

began looking more

at

those pictures and trying to understand

how

they were made. Morgan

and Graham

friends were and forties and thirties the worked together in

.

They
ni

not in

The
I

was very enamored

of the relationship

Morgan had with Graham,

and

M
couple of days in northern Florida taking pictures of a

was forming with the choreographer

for three or four

Mark

Morris,
I

new company he said yes. Can come

I

weeks? Can
I

come
to
I

longer?

wanted

to get involved with

the

making of a dance.

wanted

spend time with the dancers and with

gotten to

Mark and Misha, both of whom

I

had

know

a few years

earlier.

had photographed them

for Vanity Fair and had shot the pictures

for

84

-*

Mikhail Baryshmkov,

New

York

City.

1989

Mikha

Baryshnikov and Rob Besserer. Cumberland Island, Georgia, 1990

*-,

^^

the fiftieth anniversary

program

for

American

Ballet Theatre

when Misha
had made
a

was the company's director. The photographs of Misha for the magazine
were of him as a glamorous
double portrait of

man more

than as a dancer, and

when Mark choreographed a piece for ABT. But had also photographed Mark dancing the role of Dido knew them both best as dancers. in his Dido and Aeneas and The new company which was made up of eight dancers, including Misha, wTio were distinguished in their own right and older than the dancers
in suits
I
I

Mark and Misha

in

most other companies

was working in studios that had been set up

a 7,500-acre wildlife preserve

at

the

White Oak Plantation,

owned by

the
a

Gilman Paper Company. The company's chairman, Howard Gilman, was

great patron of the arts
in

and one of Misha's

closest friends.

Misha had

lived

Howard's apartment in

New York

after

he defected to the United States

in 1974.

White Oak was

a peaceful

and

isolated place to work.

Everyone

was taken care of and there was a wonderful sense of purpose.

I

had brought a

with me, including

down to Florida some of Morgan's books on Graham, and we all talked

lot

of books of dance photographs

about them. Rehearsals took place in a dance studio in the woods, so

constructed a portable photography studio for myself nearby.
reportage-type pictures of the rehearsals, but
I

took some

found myself
can't

falling

back

on the portraits.

began

to

understand that dance

It is

be photographed.

Or even

filmed, for that matter.

an

art that lives in the air.

Morgan
crucial

and Graham had figured

intention

their that wrote Morgan me. before long this out

was simply to capture "the most profound and most

moment."

They
nicate with their bodies

responsive completely be to trained and they are

at

to a collaborative situation.

come would Misha Oak, White Sometimes dancing across the floor and I would be filled with wonder. I'd been taking him for granted. The piece they were working on when I was there is called
It is

Motorcade.

set to the
it is

Saint-Saens septet and

is

typical of Mark's chore-

ography

in that

or individual any on than focused on the group more

is

pair of dancers.

Mark

the greatest choreographer of

my time,

certainly,

87

Men work. his partner men, in freedom of sense wonderful a is there and from anything baroque be can opera music the women, women p artner Mish picks Besserer Rob Motorcade,
him. with stage the across runs and
I

photographed

that

moment

one

Cumberland on morning
that decided look and
it

Island, a lush barrier island off the southern

White Oak.

We

for setting portraits. good a provide would

The

Wh
Mark
The d
weeks. several over closely
It

pilyMCcU piv-oi-nvv.

of observing

him

wouldn't have happened

if

White
a in develop things of letting
or, if

slow way rather than spending ten minutes,

I'm lucky,

two days, on

normal magazine assignment.

The
ht.

Wh

We w

Wh
background. forest a against color to shoot in
black if light isn't directly

Green can very easily read as

digital,
_
"*

on

it.

Now, of course, with

M
M

you can open

la.

There

White

88

>

Mark Morris, Cumberland

Island, Georgia,

1990

Bruce

Willis

and Demi Moore, Paducah, Kentucky, 1988

l!

DEMI

MOORE
Moore nude and pregnant
in

Its

hard to imagine now, but the portrait of Demi

on the cover of Vanity hair was truly scandalous

the sense of

1991. Scandalous in

shocking and morally offensive

available,
it

to

some

people. The

first

day

the issue

was

sold out on newsstands at

Grand Central

Station

during the morning rush hour. Newsstands in other parts of the country
displayed
it

in a

white paper wrapper, as

sell
it

if it

were

porn magazine. Several

supermarket chains refused to

even with the wrapper. Editorialists

the picture was held responsible

and pundits weighed

for the rise

in.

few years

later,

of body-hugging maternity fashions.

intention, although its gratifying to think that the
feel less

None of this was my

picture helped

make pregnant women

It

awkward

or embarrassed

about their bodies.

began

as a shoot with a specific problem.

Demi had

new movie coming out and Una Brown wanted to put her on the cover, but Demi was seven months pregnant with her second child. Tina and I talked
about

how

to

handle

this

and we decided

to

go

for a

glamorous, sexy look.

a thirty-carat

Lori Goldstein, the stylist,

brought diamond earrings and

diamond ring

to the studio in

Los Angeles where we were shooting.

We had

long gowns, including a green satin robe by Isaac Mizrahi.

Demi and

had worked together several times before, and

I'd

taken her

91

Demi Moore, Culver

City, California, 1991

<
. -

wedding pictures when she married Bruce

then that
that point
first
I

Willis, in 1987.
a

had

said to her
at

was interested
I

in

photographing
called

pregnant woman, which

never had.

Demi

me when
in in

she was going to have their

child.

Bruce was working on location

I

Kentucky and she had gone

to

<

!1

there to have the baby.

stopped off
a

Kentucky on the way back

rolls

New
*

York from Los Angeles and took

for

lew

of black-and-white film. Just

them.

Demi and Bruce were

and
a

not shy about documenting the pregnancy.

Several friends
their

man
a

with three video cameras were in the room

when

daughter was born

few weeks
I

later.

At the cover sitting in 1991,

portraits.

shot a few close-ups and

for

some

full-length

Demi was by no means camouflaged

and

any of them. In the

is

standing portrait published inside the magazine the green satin robe
pulled off her shoulders
it

falls

open

to

expose her belly and

leg.

In

another picture she's wearing a black lace bra and panties. But the fully nude
picture
just for

was not taken

Demi.
I

until

toward the end of the shoot and was intended

to the ones
said,
I

was taking some companion photographs

first

had

made during Demi's

this
at

pregnancy. As
It

was shooting,
I

"You know,

would be

a great cover."
I

wasn't until

got back to

New York and looked

photograph
if

the proofs that

realized that there really

was

a great cover

there.

Tina agreed, although she thought that

She was surprised

Demi would be

furious

we

ran

it.

when Demi

said yes right away.

We all knew what

:-2

we were doing up
ramifications.

to a point, but

none of us completely understood the

picture was published, an exhibi-

few months after the

Demi Moore

tion of

my work from 1970 to 1990 opened at the International Center of Photography in New York. The director of the center, Cornell Capa, wanted
blow the picture up and hang
it
it

to

in the stairwell.
I

wouldn't
it's

let

him.

It

was

popular picture, and

se. Its

broke ground, but

cover. If
it

don't think

good photo-

graph per

magazine

were

a great portrait, she wouldn't

be covering her breasts. She wouldn't necessarily be looking at the camera.

Ih

The
type.

tion of type doesn't destroy

them. Sometimes they even need

My best

photographs are inside the magazine.

93

PERFORMANCE
When
I I

made

a series of portraits

of performance artists for Vanity

Fair,

was working with people

central to their work.

who have very strong visual This didn't make things easier.
what they do onstage
for a

concepts that are

Performers don't
session.

usually want to re-create save

it

photo

They

for themselves.

Cindy Sherman had not been photographed

as herself very often. She

for her

was something of a mystery personally. She was most well known

"Untitled Film
Stills,"

a series of black-and-white
portraits,

photographs she made

subject, but

in the late seventies.

They were

and she was the only

they were not self-portraits. She had disguised herself as actresses in generic

B-movie

roles. In

another series of portraits, which had been completed

I

couple of years before

took her picture, she cast herself as characters

in

famous paintings. was nervous about photographing Cindy because I admired her so much. When I went to meet her at her loft to talk about the portrait, she
I

came

to the

door dressed

in a

white shirt and black pants.

asked her

if

she

had any ideas about how she wanted

that she

me

to take the picture,

and she
if

said

would

like to

be hidden.

thought she could hide

idea.
It

there were
first

multiple Cindy Shermans,

94

and she liked that

was the

time

Cindy Sherman,

New

York

City,

1992

had hired

a casting agent for a picture.

The agent

tried to find look-alikes

I

Young
all

actresses

who were willing

to cut their hair.

wanted

to photograph

of them in the same outfit Cindy was wearing

when

she met me, but

shirt white was from simple the Agnes B and the pants that out turned it were by some Italian designer and the shoes were Manolo Blahnik. It would have cost too much to dress everyone like that, so we went to the Gap for

the pants and shirts. rh

battle of wills.
I

was enamored of the big Lucian Freud

to see flesh,

portraits of Bowery

naked and I wanted

but

which

is

what the Freud paintings are about,

to be

Bowery unlike most

in the

of the other performance artists wanted

photographed

paraphernalia from his stage work. He had designed

and made

fetishistic outfits that

he wore for his late-night shows

York.

in out-of-

the-way clubs

in

London and New

He presented

himself to
I

me as the
at the

absolute opposite of the figure in the Freud portraits.

time, but
I

was furious

realize that

he was not really hidden in that costume. He was

very present even though he was covered up with black rubber.

Bowery did eventually

photographed him and

strip

down. He took

off the rubber outfit and

his assistant

and companion, Nicola Bateman,

it

in a

tableau in which he seems to be giving birth to her. But, again,

ally a part

was

liter-

of their club show.

realized that in Bowery's

s

work with

Lucian

Freud, he was an object. The paintings were Freud

sitting

idea of Bowery. In the

with

me

he wanted to express himself.

'h.

Leigh Bowery.

New

York

City.

1993

Carl Lewis, Pearland, Texas, 1996

PEAK PERFORMANCE
Athletes are

proud of

their bodies. They've

is

worked very hard on them.

at least

Photographing athletes
it

little like

photographing dancers, or
I've

seems that way to me, perhaps because

had more experience with

dancers. Dancers

and

athletes use their bodies in performance, they don't

in front of the

mind posing, they are comfortable

I

camera.

almost didn't go

down

to Texas to
in 1996.
I

photograph Carl Lewis when he was

for

training for the

Olympics

had been working

two and

a half

years

on

a portfolio of portraits for the Atlanta

Committee

for the

Olympic
that

Games and

the pictures
It

had taken had been made

to

into a

book

was

about to go to press.

had

be printed
I

in

time for the opening ceremony,

I

which was only weeks away.

Lewis,

didn't

know whether
He was
a

had time

to include

and there was

good chance

that his participation in the

games

wouldn't be that significant anyway.

huge

star,

but he was

much
in

older thirty-five than most of the other athletes

the Olympics.

who would compete

He hadn't been dominant

long time.
I

his long-jumping, and sprinting in

specialties, for a

When
It

got to Texas,

was astounded
I

by the state Lewis's

body was

in.
I'd

was

like a piece

of sculpture.

had photographed him

before, but

never seen

him when

finewas body His he was so close to competing.

99

Charles Austin. Atlanta, Georgia, 1996

mm
.

tuned to

point that

would be impossible

to sustain for very long.

It

wasn't

just that his

body was strong and

beautiful.

He had reached
reach again.
It

a mental

and

emotional place that you

later

knew he would never

few weeks

Carl Lewis

won

the gold medal in the long jump.

was

a stunning,
.

brilliant

performance. He retired the following year with nine Olympic gold

medals.
that

Only three other

athletes in the history of the

games had earned

many.

The photographs for the Olympics project were taken while the athletes
were training and qualifying for the games.
tives
I

worked with Polaroid nega-

most of the time so

that if the picture involved

it.

movement

could see

right

away whether

had

Figuring out
I

how

to capture the right slice

of time takes a
the hurdler

little

practice.

had learned

this

when

photographed

Edwin Moses when he was preparing

up on a track and
a

for the 1984 Olympics.

Moses was one of the greatest track and

had been
set
I

field athletes in history.

hurdle

was lying next

to

it

on

my stomach

with a
I

camera with

Polaroid back.

Moses ran down the track and jumped and

thought

clicked the shutter.

When
I

pulled the Polaroid out, there was just a picture

I

of the hurdle, but

no Moses. That was embarrassing.

said, Let s

had clicked

the shutter pretty fast.

do

it

again. So

Moses ran down the track

is

again

and jumped and

this

time

got his foot. The bottom line

late.

that

if

you

see the picture

to get
it

through the viewfinder, you're too

Sports photographers

You're not going

for this.

on

film.

know how

to

compensate

Their intuition
In 1996,
pics event. that
I

and timing are impeccable.

in every
I

photographed American athletes training

didn't

Olym-

photograph the

games themselves because

I

realized

could never get as close to the athletes as

was during the training

the world record the gold medal

sessions.

Charles Austin wasn't expected to win in the high jump. Cuban

athletes

dominated
at

that event, but the

Cuban who held

was injured and

set

the Olympics and Austin unexpectedly

won

an Olympic and American record.

101

WAR
In 1990,

when

was preparing the

first

major retrospective of

my

photoearly

graphs,

went through thousands of pictures and discovered that the

I

reportage meant the most to me.

a
little

longed to go out into the world again with

35mm

camera and look

visiting

for a story.

My earliest 35mm

pictures were

taken

when I was

my family at

Clark Air Base

in the Philippines, in in

1968, in the middle of the

Vietnam War. Soldiers badly wounded

I

Vietnam

were sent to Clark to be treated before they were shipped home.

had grown

up around

soldiers

and

felt at

ease taking their pictures, although there

was certainly
I

a lot of strain in

terms of

my

feelings about the

war by

then.

didn't

photograph
In 1982

a military operation in
I

an

official

capacity until

many
for

years

later.

covered the
I

Israeli

invasion of southern Lebanon

Rolling Stone.

A writer and
Israeli

traveled through the

war zone

into Beirut.

We

were with the

of the trip
at
is

army most of the time. One of my most

vivid memories

of watching

some wire

service photographers rearrange a scene

villa in the hills

an observation post in an abandoned

overlooking the
rifles

city. It

was
to

slow day in terms of fighting, and they were moving the

a better picture. That confused
style
I

around
I

make

and shocked me.

was developing my own

of setting up formal portraits and theatrical

scenes around this time, but

102

didn't consider those conceptual portraits to

Sarajevo, 1993

Dr.

Sanja Besarovic, Kosevo Hospital, Sarajevo, 1993

Classroom, Sarajevo, 1993

*4.u

Celo, Bosnian

army commander, Sarajevo, 1993

Hans Pasovic, Susan Sontag, and Zdravko Grebo, Sarajevo, 1993

liberating. I felt free to play within was photography Portrait journalism. be Photojournalism-reportage-was about being an observer.

the genre.

happening was what About seeing

didn't

in front

of you and photographing

it.

You

tamper with

it.

For
so

my

generation of photographers the rules were

is still

very clear. That's

why

much

written about whether Robert Capa

Civil

during the soldier Spanish falling the of picture the stage not did or did

War
War.

What

they did matters.

with a group working of actors Sarajevo, in was Sontag In 1993, Susan there because was she She was Serbs. the by city the during the siege of to intervene in what had governments Western of refusal by the
incensed
population. She wanted civilian to large of a massacre bloody turned into a witness. I was inspired bear To there. people the show her solidarity with
myself, was and by her example I did when I was young. way the simply, very work and with no assistants, and they Sarajevo, all in working were who photographers I had met some

also looking for a

way

to

go someplace by

said that
I

should go

there, but

didn't

know how

to approach the subject.

I

had. they and photographer war a as working hadn't been

didn't

want

to

Then

Why
Gary
clarified things for

me.

He

said he

would help me and he gave me

way

gave which something, publish to agreed Fair Vanity started. get to

me

credentials.

Sarajevo had been blockaded and besieged

for over a year

by the time

water. running no and electricity no There was of 1993. summer went, in the

Food and medicine were scarce. The

city

is

at

the bottom of a bowl created

shells
in

by a ring of mountains, and the Serbs sat in the mountains lobbing

down. Snipers were picking people

airlifts

off at

random. The
in

UN

was sending

of supplies, although not a

lot. I

went

on one of the

UN

planes.

You could bring only what you could

and a backpack

carry,

which meant

a bulletproof vest
I

full of clothes, cameras, batteries,

and

film.

took a Contax
I

with a small variety of lenses and a Fuji 6x9 with a fixed lens.
106

chose those

<

cameras primarily because they didn't rely on batteries.

with minimal

wanted cameras

dependence on
I

electronics.

carried a small on-camera strobe

light.

with me, but

there
lit

quickly began to appreciate working in natural

Since

was no

electricity, light didn't

come from every direction. A room was

the world the

from the

the
I

coming through the windows. You saw Renaissance saw it, and it was hauntingly beautiful.
light

way
had
in

had discussed
of people
I

my plans
to to

with Susan and others before

went, and

a list

wanted

photograph. The journalists

it.

who had been

one

the city for a while the Holiday Inn,

ideas.

added

All the journalists were staying in

place,

and since we saw one another every day we exchanged

The

first

thing that everybody

the hospital, so that

new

in

town was

told to

do was

visit

the
on.
life.

morgue

at

you could understand what was going

all

There were dead children, and young mothers. People from

walks of
all

Death was random. The sound of gunfire and shelling went on

day.

Shipping containers had been placed around the streets so that people could

walk behind them. You didn't go out

Jeffrey

at night,

of course.

Smith of Contact Press Images had helped

to

me

get in touch with

That's

someone who rented armored cars

met Hasan Gluhic. Hasan was

news organizations.

how

my driver and guide. He got me everywhere.

went
to the

Hasan was with

just

me

the day

apartment of a

woman who had

won

beauty pageant. She had been crowned Miss Besieged Sarajevo.

There was
high-rise

some irony intended,

think. Miss Besieged Sarajevo lived in a

city

development on the western edge of the

where there was

as

a lot

of shelling.

mortar came
It

down

in front of

our car

we drove through
on

her neighborhood.
back.

hit a

teenage boy on a bike and ripped a big hole in his

We put him
Two

in the car

and rushed him

to the hospital, but he died

the way.

other people were killed in the blast, including an old

sitting outside

woman
I

who had been

there. Since

her house in the sun.

still

Between 300,000 and 400,000 people

over the
sports
to

lived in Sarajevo

when

was
all

people were killed every day, there were makeshift cemeteries

city.

One

of the biggest ones was in a soccer

It

field

on the

site

of the

complex built for the 1984 Winter Olympics.

in the

seemed extraordinary
tried to

me, but

midst of

all

this

carnage and misery, people

keep
107

Nedzad

Ibrisimovic

and

his

grandson, Sarajevo, 1993

Hasan Gluhic, Sarajevo, 1993

Soccer

field,

Sarajevo, 1993

Kemal Kur spahic, Gordana Knezevic, and Zlatko Dizdarevic, Sarajevo, 1993

doing, as best as possible, what they

had done

in their lives before the siege.

life.

Sarajevo had been a flourishing, cosmopolitan city with a rich cultural

schoolteacher

still

held classes, only

now

in his eighth-floor

walk-up

rather

than

in the school,

which had been demolished. Zdravko Grebo,

a former

law professor, represented the Soros Foundation in Sarajevo and ran a radio
station. Haris Pasovic,

on plays
line,

in a theater

lit

returned to Sarajevo from safety in Europe, put with candles. Nedzad Ibrisimovic fought on the front

who

which was

in his

neighborhood, and continued to write novels. Kemal

Kurspahic, Zlatko Dizdarevic, and

Gordana Knezevic,

editors of the inde-

pendent daily newspaper Oslobodjenje, managed to publish an edition every

day from their underground
in
office.

One

of the bravest, most noble people

Sarajevo was a Serb surgeon, Sanja Besarovic,

who

stayed in the city and

continued to work in the hospital even though the conditions there were
abysmal. Ihere was often no anaesthesia, and the hospital was frequently
the target of shelling.
I

came

in

one day and found her treating

man who

died on the table as

r

was photographing him.

lhe

There
Tli

happened too
I

fast.

You could only respond

to

them.
that

went

to Sarajevo again early in 1994,

and

summer

traveled to

Rwanda, where, over the course of a hundred days, a million people had been murdered. Hutu militias wielding machetes, clubs, and guns had
massacred Tutsi
the genocide
civilians

while the rest of the world refused to acknowledge

to stop
it.

and intervene

Some of the worst attacks took place in

churches and mission

The violence
to

compounds where terrified people had sought refuge. had finally ended a month before I arrived. There was nothing

do but record the evidence.

no

Blood on

mission-school

wall,

Rwanda. 1994

O.

J.

Simpson, Los A-

i<

es Criminal Courts Building. 1995

O.J.

SIMPSON
known can work
against a photographer. If you're recognizable,
it is

Being well
if people

are curious about

what you're working on,

pretty

much impospart of

sible to just

watch a story unfold. You're too

visible.

You become

the story.
that

But then there are times

when being

well

known opens doors

would otherwise be shut.

One
I

of the most flagrant examples of special

trial.
I

access for

me was

the O.

J.

Simpson murder
was born

used to joke because

was embarrassed about it that

to cover that trial.

The Simpson case was a media sensation from the moment Nicole Simpson and Ron Goldman were stabbed to death in front of Nicole's condo
in

Brentwood.

When

O.T. tried to leave

town

in the

white Ford Bronco.

became obsessed with the

ten

story.
It

Court

TV broadcast the trial, which lasted

first

months, in
it

its

entirety.

was the
I

big reality show.

I

remember
it.

watching
then Tina

and thinking how glad

called

was

that

didn't have to shoot

And

Brown
The

and

told

me she wanted me to go to

Los Angeles and

cover

it

for

New

Yorker.

Tina had

become
had
a long history of distinguished reporting, but
it

New

Yorker

had never
up.

published photographs before Tina arrived

and began shaking things

113

he

Sout^

*.

-.

wa
f

V J

She hired Richard Avedon as the

first staff
I

photographer.

wanted very

much
long

to

work

for
I

them although
I

was committed
O.J.

to Vanity Fair in the

run and

didn't think

could turn the

trial

assignment down.

Photographers covering the

the pool

worked

in a pool.
five

You signed up
was

for

and waited

for

your turn. Only four or

at

photographers were
I

allowed in the courtroom

couldn't participate.
pretty annoying.
Ito,
I I

any one time.

signed up, but

told
it

don't

remember why, but whatever

the reason,
trial,

was

had learned by then

to

that the judge in the

Lance

was

a fan of

mine and wanted

meet me. The 1970-1990

exhibition

of

my work had just

Ito

closed at the Los Angeles

Judge

had seen

it.

So had the

district

County Museum of Art and attorney and a lot of other people

to

involved in the

trial.

went

to the judge's to
I

chambers and talked

for a portrait.

him about

what

wanted

to

do and asked him

sit

He

very reluctantly

declined to pose, but

when

told

him

couldn't get a seat in the courtroom

I

he

said, "Well, this

is

my

courtroom and

can

let in

anyone
I

want

to."

was given

my own
I

slot,

outside of the pool system.

to

Once

had

access to

the courthouse
office

was able

meet

all

the people

who

wouldn't answer their

who
I

phones. Like everything else in L.A., the whole system depended on you knew. And they were flattered that I had come from New York and
to take their pictures.

wanted

had photographed Robert Shapiro, the lead defense attorney, for Vanity Fair a few months earlier, and he was very helpful. He negotiated with O.J. for
days about sitting for a portrait in
lit

jail,

but O.J. was worried that he wouldn't

clothes.

Then we were
was worried about having handcuffs on.
I

the courtroom, but O.J.

detail,
at

loved that

of course. Finally Shapiro arranged for O.J. to turn around and look

me when

falling

he was walking out of court. That opportunity seemed to be through also, however, when O.J. realized that he was wearing a blue
I

suit that day.

pointed out to Shapiro that

O.J.

it

would be

a black-and-white

photograph, which calmed

in the
I

down.

No one was supposed to take pictures

courtroom
rises

few moments when everyone

to get

in the

and

files out,

but

managed

two or three frames. They reprimanded

me but

they didn't

take the film away.

116

You're

swimming

in the sleaze

when you work

that the edit will

like this. That's

how you
I

get the picture.

You can only hope

impose a larger meaning

on the project. Tina ran a sixteen-page photo essay in The

grateful,

New

Yorker.

was

but

think that

if

had been the editor

site. It

would have run

being
at

a series of

pictures that

took

at

the

murder

was

like

Graceland. Traffic

was backed up. Tourists were photographing one another in front of the
gate.

That would have been an interesting portfolio.

of the things this job did for

One
raphy.

me was

reinforce

my belief in

photog-

You may think that you

can't

compete with the barrage of images

on

television,

but individual pictures have their

own

impact. You can study

them. They remain.

117

Los Angeles Criminal Courts Building. 1995

<

**
-

Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon, Los Angeles. 1995

AV
-z~
\

MPROMPTU
For Vanity Fair's
first

Hollywood

issue, in 1995,

decided to photograph
in Billy

Tony Curtis and Jack

Wilder s Some Like
It

Lemmon

in

drag as an homage to their roles

Hot, which

came out

in 1959. Curtis

and

Lemmon
Their

Th

portrayals of

two jazz musicians disguised

profound even. But

as as
I

women

in

an

all-girl

band

are brilliant nuanced,

makeup

watched them put on their realized that what was interesting was to see them in the middle

of their transformation.

To see the

actor's

mask.

121

\<

PATTI SMITH

In 1978, Patti Smith's

new album,
It

Easter,

and the

single "Because the

Night" were in the Top Twenty.

was

Patti's first

big commercial hit and

I

she was going to be on the cover of Rolling Stone.

had gone on

the road

with her and the band for a while, photographing performances and doing some offstage reportage. When we got to New Orleans we decided
to

do the cover shoot

there.

An

assistant

just starting to

work with

assistants

came out from California was then and I told him that wanted to
I
I

photograph

Patti in front
is

of a huge wall of flame.

is

suppose

was thinking

of the line "Desire

hunger

the

fire

breathe" in "Because the Night."

The

assistant said he
a net

knew what
in
it.

to do.

We
Patti

rented a warehouse and

he strung up

soaked

kerosene and

stood

in front of the net

and the

assistant set fire to

fell

That lasted for about

It

five
1

seconds. The net

10 degrees inside
to set a flame

burned up and

on the

floor.

was summer and

that the only

the warehouse already, but

to

we decided

wav

burn long enough was to

set fire to the barrels

of kerosene themselves.

In those days
fire

you could do things

like that.

We

didn't think about getting

department permits or anything. The warehouse didn't burn down, miraculously, although Patti's back got a little singed.
Patti
is

sweating and her blouse

is

sticking to her skin because of the

122

** -

-Jul

Patti Smith,

New

Orleans. 1978

Patti Smith,

New

York

City,

1996

intense heat. She

is

wearing her own clothes, and there was no

Patti says that

stylist

or

hair-and-makeup person.

when

she

first

saw the cover on

the stands, she thought, "Is that

what

look like?" She says she came to

I

understand

many

years later that the person

had seen when

took the

photograph was someone she wasn't consciously aware of then. That she

grew into the person

In 1996 Patti
in a

in the picture.

had

just

returned to

New York after years of living quietly

after a

suburb of Detroit. Her husband had died

long illness and

her beloved brother had died suddenly a few weeks

later.

She was

bereft,

with two young children to care

feeling depressed,

for.

She was walking the

that she

street aimlessly,

and when she realized was

was near

my studio,

she

called to ask if

it

OK

to

come

up.

It felt

natural to take her picture.

She was wearing her husbands leather jacket and she seemed breathtakingly vulnerable

so raw, so open. Patti thinks that the picture shows an

It

inner strength that the camera saw in 1978 but that she had to discover

over time and through bitter experience.

was used

for

Gone Again, the

new life and career. The pictures are pretty much the same picture. Patti was the same person. She was photographed many times, most famously by Robert Mapplethorpe, who was a close friend. It's flattering to think that Patti
album
that inaugurated her

believes that

my
is

pictures revealed something no one else saw. I'm always

perplexed

when people

say that a photograph has captured someone.

photograph
It

just a tiny slice of a subject.

piece of

them

in a

moment.

seems presumptuous to think you can get more than

that.

125

Puff

Daddy and Kate Moss, Pans. 1999

FASHION
Bea
Feitler

used to

tell

stories
1

about going to the couture collections

in Paris

with Richard Avedon in the

then,
a

960s. Bea

was the art director of Harper's Bazaar

shows and photograph the dresses
getting the clothes
first.

and they would have

to see the

in

few days. Magazines battled over

at

who was

The
the

magazines would have them

day.

night and the buyers had

them during

Photographers and editors stayed up working around the clock and

I

everyone got drunk and crazy and wild.

I

listened to Beas stories with awe.

thought of them
first

when

went

to Paris to cover the couture collections tor

I

Vogue for the

time in 1999.

was

thrilled to be in Paris shooting those

I

clothes. They're like pieces

of sculpture.

couldn't believe that

Anna Wintour
I

had asked
see

me

to go.

The scene that Bea described was long

past, but

would

some

great

shows

in show Gallianos years few next over the in Paris

the Orangerie at Versailles,

They shows. McQueen Alexander amazing some

time was in 1977

were
I

like

performance

art.
first

had done fashion work a few times before. The

I

when
with

went

to Plains, Georgia,

Jimmy

Carters hometown, to do a shoot

Margaux Hemingway
and we shot

for

New

become just had Carter magazine. West

and
in a

president,

in front of his house,

peanut

field,

and

in

the back

room

of his brother Billys gas station,

where the cases of beer

127

Ben

Stiller,

Pan

20(

were stored. The clothes were typical of the

picture

late seventies. In the gas station

It

Margaux was wearing gold lame

pants.

was

like a

Vargas pinup.
right,
I

Way Bandy and Maury Hopson, who were

makeup and
hair.
It

stars in their

own

did the
a

Margaux was good

friends with
I

them and

saw how

team can work.

it

was very illuminating, although

later.

didn't

make much use of

"You can take the
see the clothes.
advice,

until

twenty years
I

Before

left

for Plains,

Bea had given

me some

advice.

picture any

way you

want," she said. "But

you must always

me.
It

You must be true

and
I

to the fashion." That has stuck with

was good

think of it now,

when

I'm working with truly great, beautiful clothes.

Everyone loves being photographed for Vogue. Not just because of the
magazine's stature

and the tradition behind

of.

it

but also because they

know

they are going to be taken care

don't have to

They

are going to look

good and they

It's

worry about what someone writes about them.

not investi-

gative reporting.

Anna came up with

I

the idea of using Puff Daddy, as he was

first,

called then, for the collections.

wasn't so sure at

and then

realized

she was absolutely right.

The juxtaposition of rap culture and high fashion

made
Kate
story

things interesting.
at a

We

concocted a story about Puff Daddy meeting

It

Moss

party and having a romance in Paris.

for

was

little bit like

the

Avedon did
They

Harpers Bazaar

in 1962 with

Mike Nichols and Suzy

Maxim
Putting together a shoot like this
is

not dissimilar to making a small

set.

I
I I

movie. You have to have everything planned before you get on the
large

A
is

team

is

involved and there are

many

meetings. Most of the time

I

spent on pre-production work.

When

I'm shooting,

use a storyboard with

in the appropriate

thumbnail pictures so that

place in the

can make sure that people are

it

photograph

in

terms of how
all

will

look in the magazine.

at clothes.
I

We
I

started out by going to

the runway shows and looking

worked closely with Grace Coddington, the Vogue fashion

editor.

don't

think that Grace

but she's a pro
the scenario

was

entirely
it

convinced that

could carry

this off at first,

and she stuck

out. She chose clothes that

would work with

a party at a trendy

we had storyboarded. Puff Daddy was giving

129

Natalia Vodianova,

Stephen Jones, and Christian Lacroix,

Paris.

2003

restaurant

and we decided

to shoot

our party scene there.

It

was big and loud

in.

and insane, but we managed to rope off an area to work

several designers in the picture,
to

Anna wanted
talking

and the idea was

that Kate

would be

them. Puff Daddy was supposed to be on the right-hand side of the picture,
first

looking across at her. Seeing her for the

Lagerfeld,

time. Jean Paul Gaultier, Karl

all

Oscar de
in

la

Renta, and John Galliano had

sat

taken their places

when Puffy came

and

down and
I

said, "Annie,

got to speak to you."

the

We

stepped away and he said, "Annie,

side.
I

didn't
I

come
at

all

way to
said,

Paris to be

on the want

want

to

be

in the middle."
It

looked

him and

"You don't

to

be
I

in the middle."

was

a horizontal picture that

went across two

pages and
in the

tried to explain to
It

him about
So he

the gutter of a magazine. The fold

middle.

didn't matter.

sat in the

middle. But
I

was working

with two frames,

side

and when

got back to

New York

just

took the right-hand

sitting in

and put

it

on the left-hand page. So even though he was shot

he was on the
side.
I

the middle, in the finished spread

I

used to take pictures where the center was very strong, but
that.

had

to stop

doing

You can never put anything

in the gutter. Its like a third person.

I

Or

a canyon.

When
animal.

I'm editing pictures

sometimes pick them up and bend

flat,

them. They might look better

is

when

they're

but a picture in a magazine

flat.

a different

No one ever sees

I

the picture

For

all

the scenes with

Puff

Daddy and Kate

used the two frames across two pages. Puff Daddy

was with us for two days and on the third day we worked with Kate alone,
doing straightforward fashion shots in an old paint factory.

Anna was very smart

hard to
like to
tail

to ask
I

Kate

to

work on
to

my

first

couture shoot.

It is

with Kate Moss.

was used
I

photographing people who don't

likes
it.

be photographed, and here

had someone who

to

Kate trusts

you. She's seductive.

She knows

how

wear clothes

that are difficult. She

moves her body

It

to give two or three ideas about

there's

how

the clothes can look.

apparent. The other
dresses are
It's

seems simple, but

more work

involved than

is

revelation for
to

me

was that clothes are like a person.

Some

made

be

sat in,

but most look better

when

the

model
I

is

standing up.

like the

good and bad sides of the

but
I

sitter in a portrait.

love dresses with volume,

a skinny dress, like the

didn't

know what

to

do when they gave

me

one
u

rfi

with it. to what do knew Kate and gorgeous dress, years later with Ben two done was shoot couture big My second
cliches. In one photography scene, fashion of send-ups of
tall

Stiller.

He
.

male models, and about I decided to sh comedy a Zoolander, had just made
a series
Stiller

and
if

several very

models are standing around with antlers on

their heads, as

they were
girls in

in a

Bruce Weber shoot. In another photo, two Helmut Newtonish

black evening

gowns

are lying together next to a

swimming

pool.

was seven and a half months pregnant at the time, and one morning at 5:30 found myself on the quai, shooting an homage to some famous photographs
I

bubble and hired a crane and gotten

although that was
all left

some kind of permission

to

do

this,

a
it

little

vague.

Stiller rather tentatively got in the

bubble and the crane

lifted

over the Seine. Stella Tennant stood on the side

looking arrogant in a red Christian Lacroix gown.

We
When
on
in

literary fantasies, things

had

to

be more tightly controlled. For the

Alice

Wonderland shoot, designers were asked to make dresses

for Alice and

then the designers themselves were cast in specific roles for the photographs.

John Galliano was the Queen of Hearts.

Viktor and Rolf were
the
a

Tom

Ford was the White

Rabbit.

Tweedledum and Tweedledee.

Christian Lacroix was

March Hare. Natalia Vodianova was

little

Alice. She's another great

model and

good

actress.
for

The 1939 film version of The Wizard ofOz was the primary reference
the

Oz

fashion shoot. Keira Knightley played Dorothy

and we

cast artists in
ot

the other roles. Jasper Johns the

was the Cowardly Lion.

Jeff

Koons was one

Wicked Witch's

flying

monkeys. Brice Maiden was the Scarecrow. Chuck

Close was the Wizard. Most of the scenes were shot in upstate

New

York.

For the scene with Kara Walker as Glinda the

the

Penn

State

marching band.

Good Witch we brought in They marched up and down the Yellow Brick
is

Road. What's great about doing the Vogue work

appropriate to go over the top. Vogue
132
is

that

it

seems completely
fantasy.

about dreams and

K-

ghtley and

Jeff Koons.

Goshen. Ne

York.

2005

Kirsten Durv

V<

iailles,

2006

The Chateau de Versailles was opened up

time in twenty-five years
pictures. Sofia

for a fashion

shoot for the

first

when we went
film

there to take the Marie Antoinette

star,

Coppolas

was coming out and her

Kirsten Dunst,
at Versailles,
la

was
but
I

my

model. Most of the pictures were going to be done

I

thought

would

also try to get into the Conciergerie,

on the He de

Cite,

near Notre
there,

Dame, where Marie Antoinette was imprisoned. Her

I

cell

is still

although
I

never assumed
a

was going

to

be able to get into

that exact one.

just

wanted

generic dungeon. With an Irving Penn back-

ground

gray.

There was some miscommunication, however, and the French

I

got very upset, thinking that

I

was going

to

do something

sacrilegious.

Then

started getting discreet

messages from Anna saying that she didn't want

"depressing" pictures. She

not the guillotine part.
I

wanted the happy part of Marie Antoinette's

life,

was determined to do one dark picture, so

at

my

French producer made

in the

arrangements for us to shoot

eighteenth century the

an old chateau north of Paris where

in a cave

owner had kept two bears

on the grounds.

We shot

Kirsten in a Rochas pannier dress at the bottom of the cave. She was

illuminated by natural light,

augmented by

a strobe, that
It

came through

bars

over a large opening at the top of the cave.

was very
it.

beautiful, although

Anna put up

a bit of a struggle

about running

135

NUD
The
series of

nudes used

for the

2000

Pirelli

calendar came out of working

at

with dancers from the

Mark Morris Dance Group

the White

Oak

Plan-

tation in northern Florida.

Dancers are very interesting

to photograph.

Even when they are

still,

their bodies retain a sense of

movement. They
else.

have a kind of grace that you're not going to get from anyone

And

most dancers

don't

mind taking

their clothes

off.

They express themselves

through their bodies.

Pirelli is

an

Italian
is

company with
essentially a

a core business in high-end

tires. Its

corporate calendar

pinup calendar produced

in a limited

edition for clients in the United

Kingdom and Europe. You

is

can't

buy

it.

The

assignment pays extremely well, which

raphers. Richard

one of

its

attractions for photog-

Avedon did two

all

Pirelli calendars.

Bruce Weber, Norman

Parkinson, and Bert Stern have

done them. The

and they serve

pictures are usually sexy

in a conventional, rather glitzy way,

as a

showcase

for models.

The nude photographs

had made

at

White Oak were intended

for

my book

Women, but

decided that they might seem exploitative

in that context.

In the context of the Pirelli calendar they

were

genteel.

liked the idea of

changing the direction of the calendar

a bit for the

end of the millennium.

We finished the project in an old dairy barn on my property in Rhinebeck,

136

VB^BB

Lauren Grant, White Oak Plantation, Florida, 1999

June Omura, Rhinebeck.

Now

York, 1999

June Omura, Rhmebeck, New York, 1999

in upstate

New

York.

had never done pure nudes before, but

I

had been
to

and years, for photographs studying nude

prepare. Alfred
Stieglitz's

looked

at

hundreds of them

nude

portraits of Georgia O'KeefFe are probably

my
is

intimate so They're pictures. favorite

and sensual. You can

tell

that he

in

in those sittings give-and-take that occurs only a There's her. with love
lovers.

between

You see

that kind of tenderness in

Edward Weston's nudes

early studies Mapplethorpe's of Robert Patti in and Smith, Wilson, Chads of her husband of on their nudes honeymoon Cunninghams Imogen and in

on

Mt. Rainier.

Most male nudes go overboard. Cunninghams

a peaceful quality. She's not trying too hard.

pictures of

her husband have

There are
a

all

kinds of love. The emotional intimacy and trust between

parent and child are conveyed in the beautiful, sensual nude pictures
his

Weston made of
children.
I

son

Neil's torso.

And
of the

in Sally
Pirelli

Mann's pictures of her

suppose that

in the case

nudes

was influenced

Weston

Th
Westo
too,

were formalists.

My familiarity or acquaintanceship with the dancers in

have anything to do with the photo sessions, which
than anything
else.
I

Mark's

company

didn't

were more

like life-drawing classes

think the dancers

thought of them as performances.

I

didn't start off thinking that the pictures

first

would be so

dark. That look

was almost accidental. The

and
I

few Polaroids we took were badly exposed,

loved them. As soon as you opened up the correct exposure they

weren't as interesting.

Whatever the meter reading was

stops.

in the barn,

we

went down about two

that

The natural
for

light

was supplemented by

lights
tlat fall

had recently been designed

The
flattest light I'd

music videos. They produced very

light.

ever used.

As the

light hit the

body
I

it

would
it

away, creating soft shadows and almost translucent shapes.

thought
little

was

gorgeous. Very fleshy and strangely green. But there was very
tion in the negative.
said

informa-

My assistant
the print

begged

me
I

to get a brighter exposure.

He

we could darken

down
sav.

later.

hear this
t

all

the time, even in

like that. There's

digital

work. The technicians will

"You can

expose

it

140

no

detail. Its

blown out" But sometimes

it

want

it

to

look like that.

if
I

don't

want
I

to play

sate.

And

lose control ol the process

I

don't get

what

want when Tin shooting.

the film

he mules didn't have the translucent quality

when
It

was exposed properly.

had not been

1

my

intention to shoot bodies with no heads. In the begin-

ning

took

some
I

pictures ol complete figures, but

realized that the
tlat

when

saw the way faces

them.
didn't
light.
'I

were rendered
falling
faces.
oil"

light wasn't right tor

he

light

the bod\

made

the bod\

more

beautiful, but

it

work on
faces

It

was distracting. Ihe faces needed more directional

to the picture,

And

added personality

which

didn't

seem

right. 'Ihe pictures are

studies, not portraits.

141

GROUPS
Some
pictures attain resonance as

documents of their

time. That's certainly

true of the photograph of

istration taken early in

George Bush and several members of his adminfor the cover of Vanity Fair. There

December 2001

was

sixteen-page portfolio inside the magazine, with individual portraits

of the president, Laura Bush, Dick Cheney,

croft,

Donald Rumsfeld, John Ashas the

and other key

I

figures in

what had recently become known

to let us

war

on

terror.

don t know why they agreed

for

do

this.

We

were
I

in the

White House
they
felt

two days

setting

up equipment and shooting.

suppose

more

self-righteous

and confident than ever

at that point.

The

war

in

Afghanistan was working. Kabul had just

fallen,

and as we now
war
in Iraq.

know a few days earlier

It

Bush had
for

initiated secret plans for the

I

was

heady moment

them.

didn't direct this portrait very

much

except to ask the president to put his hands in his pockets. He's a cocky guy

with a Texan swagger.

Bush suggested
but
use
I'd
it.

that

we shoot

the cover photograph in the Oval Office,

I

worked
I've

in the

Oval Office several times before and

that line of

didn't

want

to

had nothing but problems with

windows behind

the

president's desk. They're very distracting.

Famous photographs have been

taken in the Oval Office, but most of them are black and white and use the
142

3
*

I-

>

Cheney, B. Richard President Powell. Vice S1 ite Colin L George W. Bush, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, White House Chief of Staff Andrew H Card, Jr.. C.I. A. Director George Tenet,
Secreta* President
,

of

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Cabinet Room the White House. Washington, D.C.. December 2001

windows

to create a silhouette of the president.

When

photographed

Bill

Clinton there after he

became president we were kept waiting

for hours the

By the time we went

in to take the picture, the

sun had gone down and

other no place in the room to shoot. there's But dark. were windows Hie wings of the Oval Office look like reception areas. Anyway, why shoot in
the

Oval Office unless

it.

it

looks like the Oval Office?

I'd

pretty

much

given up on

Also,
I

didn't like the

way Bush had decorated

it.

Too many Remingtons.

asked where the

the Cabinet

War Room was and someone suggested that perhaps Room would do, so we set up the equipment there. We had a

very short period of time in which to get this shot.

Mulligan,

My assistants and Karen

my

studio manager, and Kathryn

Vanity Fair, acted as stand-ins for height of everyone

MacLeod, my producer from pre-lighting. We had been given the exact

in the picture.

who was

going to be

The unforeseen element

last

in this sitting

was the extra person added

at

the

minute.

We

pre-lit for a portrait

with six people and then shot

Bush's chief of staff, and
I

seven.
told
six

The group walked

that he

in

with

Andrew Card,

was

would be

in the picture too.

The composition was

it.

better with

people, but there was nothing to be

done about

Andrew Card

didnt add

much in terms of historical significance. He is remembered principally as the man who came up to Bush at the elementary school where the president
was being filmed observing
ear that a second plane
a class
just

on September

1 1

and whispered

in his

had

flown into the World Trade Center.

sides were

The

portrait

was created from two frames. The

trimmed on

the published photograph to

make

it

fit

the cover o( the magazine, which

explains

why

Colin Powell looks a

little

cramped.

was using two frames

a squarish
the

a lot at that

time because
I

my

camera, the

Mamiya RZ67, had

format and

prefer a wider frame. Putting

lens.

two frames together broke

boundaries imposed by the

is

Trying to get everything into one

rectangle

frustrating.
I

You look around and you see so much more than

frame
for the first time in 1969,
Israel,

the camera

does.

tried to transcend the

when
I

was

a student,

on

my way

back to San Francisco from

1

where
La
to

had been

working on

a kibbutz.

took

bus

to Paris
1

and walked

to

Passerelle des

Arts, the footbridge next to the Pont Neuf.

was so excited

be

in the spot

144

Jm
i

liM*"l

ill

where Henri Cartier Bresson had stood that

degrees of pictures, But
it

turned
s

in a circle

and shot 360

rs

was David Hockne)

I

photographic collages that

he

most inspired
ne\s pictures

me

to

open up the frame,

wa\ the

was floored by how close Hockeye sees,

I I

he

came

to the

human

lockne) assembled the

whole picture from indh idual shots

ol its parts,

le

said he thought that

was

more honest than

ib
I

single frame, closer to the truth of experience,

began putting multiple

dames

together
I

when

had

to

shoot large groups

for
v.-

Vanity Fair In 1995, for the

first

loll)

wood
I

issue,

which has become an

annual event around the time

people, plus a

oi

the Oscars,

photographed thirty-seven

iren

do^ and

a horse, for a

four page foldout

ol

commemorating

the

actors in the old studio s) stem.

Some
r

these people were ver) old and this

would be the

last

significant O

taken photograph of them. o

r

We
I

had

rene Autrv,

Ginger Rogers,
really

Roddy McDowall, Richard Widmark,

stars.
I

Shelley

Winters

important

It

hadn't occurred to

me

yet that
a

could piece the

shot together, so
5

used

Widelux camera, which has

long negative that

tO

could

accommodate

the whole group. But the Widelux was a disaster. The

I

figures at the sides

of the frame were distorted.

like
it

[eartbreakingly

so.

Douglas

Fairbanks
db
.

fr.s

head looked
first

had been flattened out with

issue

a rolling pin.

The cover of that

actresses.
I

Hollywood
a

was

three page foldout ot ten

the

shot

them using

method based on
pan
1

way we worked when

in t

we scouted locations.

We would
The

a< ross

an area with Polaroids and then

tape the frames together.

iedo

first

lollvwood cover shoot was arranged very

for the three frames,
I

meticulously. There were three

cameras on tripods
(

and

everyone was carefully lined up. The picture was

am

)K, hut

thought

it

looked
didn't
for a

a little strange, since

there wasn't a single point of view.

oil'.
I

The panels
this

quite
4
Ll

fit

together,

and the perspective was

I

worked on

problem

ar

while,

and eventually

oke i

began doing the lollvwood issue covers by shooting

\

one frame for the front panel, the one with the logo and type on
th e
rest

it,

and

for

second and third panels

of the group.
I

would use another camera

in the third

to

pan across the

The people

frame were angled toward the

in a little tighter. This

^
ia

camera, so as

turned to the right they were brought

into a

dbc

was

all

done on him, which was then scanned

was produced.

computer and

new

>

re lle

negative

it

145

Warren

Howard

Buffett, Frank Biondi, Richard Parsons, Stringer, Edgar Bronfman, Jr., Ron Meyer.

John Malone. Bob Wright,

Andrew

Grove, Terry Semel,

Jr.,

Ralph Roberts, Rupert Murdoch, Nathan Myhrvold, Gerald Levin, John McCaw, Jeff Berg, David Geffen, Katharine Graham, Bill Gates, Herbert A. Allen. Nobuyuki Idei, Barry Diller, and Jeffrey Katzenberg, Trail Creek Inn, Sun Valley, Idaho. 1997

learned a

lot

about perspective from taking those group shots, and

it" I

started to believe that

panned

the

camera

to the

left

and

to the right

on

my

regular portraits
It

could get a picture that was truer to the way the eye

sees.

made

sense to take two frames for a magazine: the left-hand page

and the right-hand page.

thing similar to the

Two

frames from the

Mamiya RZ67 made someI

dimensions of a

35mm

rectangle, the frame size

have

always preferred.

When you

put two of the

Mamiyas frames

together you

created a very large negative.

So you got handsome pictures taken with a

little

normal
the
I

lens,

no distortion, plus the tweak of perspective that adds a

on

left

and

a little

on the

right.

modified Hockney.
close,

started using

two cameras and two tripods, working

and

at first

made

the fact that there were

two frames very obvious, leaving the edges

visible in the print.

Then

didnt think that was necessary anymore, and

we
the

just

scanned the film for the two images into the computer and made
I

composite look seamless.

go back to one frame,
I

did this for a long time. As often as

I

would
I

try to

could never get the same dynamics

I

did

with panning the camera.

corners.

loved the larger image.

a

felt

could see around

I

You could almost get

3-D

effect.

Toward the end

would

just

hold the camera in

my hand and

swing around.

Of course when we
fit

put the

images together in the computer they didnt always

assistants started

together neatly.

My

shooting the whole

room
to

after

was finished shooting, so

that

we would have the necessary pieces

add

in

when

the scans were put

together.

The
Sun Valley in 199 7

Th
The
until then

time was considered something of a

the retreat

coup

for Vanity Fair, since

is

up

had been very

secretive.

Herbert Allen

a billionaire invest-

ment banker
aires.

who understands

the value of relationships with other billionin 1982,

His

first

Sun Valley conference,

had

thirty-five guests.

By the

mid-nineties, there were over three

children.
ters.

hundred adults and

nn

hundred or so

The children were looked

in

after

by an army of Allen
Qiihiprts

& Co. babysit-

The adults nartiHnaWl

mnpk

of interest to them, went

47

Dominic Chianese. David Chase, Jamie-Lynn Sigler. Robert Michael Bracco. Lorraine Gandolfim. James Nancy Marchand, Edie Falco. City York New Pastore. Steve Van Zandt. Tony Sirico. Jerry Adler. and Vincent

^P^' \^
1 '

golfed, got massages, and networked. The tennis, played white-water rafting, Fair level. Vanity started highest the on making was, obviously,

networking

of hand out fairly got things quickly. The but event, yearly a the photograph in the picture, and Herber wanted they people of list a

magazine drew up

Allen was put in the

awkward position of trying

left

to explain to

some

of the

been had they why moguls

out. People's feelings

were

hurt.

The photo-

networking business. In 1999, serious the from distraction graph became a last would be the photograph. that said Allen sitting, the finished

when

feeling in the picture. old-fashioned an created negative The Polaroid lot during the nineties and a Mamiya my on back negative used a Polaroid
I

film, in fact, by which time the producing stopped Polaroid later up until negative more on the back of was There digital. with work to starting
I

was

the camera than there

was with regular

film.

And
a

the Polaroid negative was

reat

Th
integrity.
It

felt like

you were working with

platinum

print. Prints

made

flattened-out look beautiful, of the with compared boring looked from film

Th

We
It

became
is

apparent to

me after a while that

I

shooting two frames

to

make

a picture

not a good

thing.

The composite picture was two moments. I was

began working with
a

missing the

moment. When

35mm

digital camera,

I enjoyed going together. images two put to reason any there was no longer in involved work of lot a was There relief. a was It back to a single frame.

putting the two

halves together,

and

was

starting to leave out the middle.

The photograph of the cast of The Sopranos was

minimal props.
I

made

in

my studio with
to

individual of Xeroxes folding by image the constructed

frames and taping them together,

a
file

and then

my model
is

was used

make

for

the magazine. The exaggerated width

it

true to the da Vinci last

Supper,

and

conveniently
first

fit

into a three-page foldout.

The

picture was
little

taken shortly after the

taken aback by
all

season of the series aired.

The

actors were a

was Gandoltini James getting. were the attention they

that

persuaded was he but Christ, as position reluctant to assume the central

i

it

wasn't blasphemous.

150

The
sary of Paramount Studios, in 2002.
It

was the best organized, the best

set up,

We
front of the original studio gates.
It

took several days to build the

set.

Stand-

We

We
and three

Mamiyas were

set

up on

tripods.
fleet

moved from camera to camera.

had those old-fashioned studio
is

When

it

was time for the shoot, a

of golf carts brought the stars to the

it. I

scaffolding
shots in

and they were escorted onto

mind, where you can see everyone and everyone

middle, up front.

equal.

concen-

trated the older stars in the

We had James Coburn, CharlMickey Rooney,

ton Heston, Sidney Poitier, Ernest Borgnine, Jane Russell,

Rhonda Fleming. The actual shoot took about twenty minutes.

What

hadn't taken into account

was how small everyone would be when

If

the picture

was printed

in the

magazine.
tiny.

you blew

it

up,

it

was

beautiful,
is

hut in the
It

magazine everyone looked

The Paramount picture

I

special.

documented an extraordinary group of people.

I

have learned

how

to

organize and direct large groups, but

individual.
portrait.

would always

rather photograph an

No group

picture

is

going to have the power of an individual

PRESENCE AND CHARISMA

One wood
I

particularly Hollyphotography, portrait about cliches oldest of the

portrait photography,
is

that the
I

camera loves certain

people's faces.

resisted that idea for a long time.

was

skeptical about a subject holding

a picture

on

his

own and would

I

always go into a shoot with some kind of

years, however, I've
true.

plan to help things along.

Over the
up

come to understand,
are photogenic. You

almost reluctantly, that the cliche

see
it

is

Some people

when you

are setting

a portrait with a stand-in. You're having a

in

walks subject the then and right looks nothing and time miserable
everything
a
is

and

transformed. Nicole Kidman, for one, takes over. There's not

bad way

to

photograph

her.

Cate Blanchett

is

another one.

She's always

interesting.

And Susan

Sarandon. Catherine Deneuve. She

just

becomes

Catherine Deneuve. Johnny

Depp
is

also has

it.

What
eye.

I'm talking about

not always immediately visible to the naked

at

look you when shoot the during of it aware become sometimes You

a Polaroid or at the screen of a monitor.

And

it's

not just that the camera

.Th
The
Til
at

standing.

152

Nicole Kidman, Charleston, East Sussex, England, 1997

Clamour

is

part of the quality

mean, but

it

can manifest

itself in situ-

In 1997, glamorous. particularly ations that aren't

when
Shut,
1

Nicole Kidman

was

in

England, making the Kubrick

film Eyes

Wide

brought her

to

Charleston, the former

home

of Vanessa Bell and

Duncan

Grant, in Sussex.

sun for a year or something before of the out stay to her asked had Kubrick Almost white. very translucent. was skin her She and filming, they started
black a turtleneck but nothing wearing sweater, bed of a edge sat on the you would think that Everything makes her camera. the at directly looking
a

movie

star

was stripped away, and she

still

held the picture.

Th
There

The
for instance,
is

not only a genius but

he's sexually

charged and energetic

himself
is

and

that

comes through on the camera. His

Waits
is

total belief in
is

thor-

not "beautiful." Nor

Daniel Day-Lewis.

Th
Will

The
gaunt, sinister look.

Being photogenic

is

a tool of the trade.

remember shooting
still

magazine

cover with the cast of E.R.

cast of Friends.
sitting

when George Clooney was

part of it, and the

on

We had them all grouped together on scaffolding. They were video monitors. There were monitors everywhere. We had video
I

cameras focused on their faces while

monitors.
I

shot,

and the

live feeds

were on the

was taken aback by how great they looked. They were

TV actors.

Had
faces

they been chosen because they looked so good in close-ups? Their

were photogenic in that square.

Actors
to

who

are photogenic like being photographed,

I

and fve come

understand that they make the photograph.

realized

when

studied

pictures of Marilyn

Monroe

that
It

it

almost didn't matter

like

who

the photog-

rapher was. She took charge.

seemed

she was taking the picture.

feel

There are other actors, however,

who

resist

being photographed. They

awkward.
154

It

doesn't

seem

to

them

to have anything to

do with

their work.

>

>1

Johnny Depp, New York

City.

1994

Cate Blanchett.

os Angele:

200-1

Meryl Streep and Robert

sion that a

De Niro

are in this category.

have the impresit

photograph seems superficial to them. They associate

with
to

being a star

and they think of themselves

I

as actors

first.

They

don't

want

be connected to the star machinery.

think also that actors such as Streep

and De Niro got into acting to get away from themselves. They like playing
roles

and they

feel

cornered by a photograph. They don't

part of what they do.

feel that

projecting

their personalities is
selling

They associate

photograph with

themselves.

Cate Blanchett seems to have transcended any

graphic enterprise. She
is

qualms about the photo-

an actor deeply committed to the theater

she

and her husband spend most of their time in Australia as directors of the

Sydney Theatre

Company and she's so self-confident that she doesn't mind

is

becoming whoever you want her to be. She seems to take for granted that
having your picture taken
theater,

part of her profession. She's

grounded

in the

but she can act like a professional

model when

called upon. Like

any great model, she doesn't

mind being

used.

157

BEING THERE
As much
as
I

love pictures that have been set up,

I'd

and

as

important as those

pictures are to me,

rather photograph something that occurs

is at

on

its

own.

The tension between those two kinds of photographs

I

the heart of what

are

do.

It's

not a conflict, but sometimes

in front of

its

useful to

remember that things

happening right
situation.

you and

that

you don't have

to complicate the

You can take what's given

to you.

You

just

need your mind and

your
I

eye.
at

photographed Philip Johnson

the Glass

House

pretty

much by
is

acci-

dent. I'm interested in architecture.

Houses fascinate me, and the Glass

certainly

House, which Johnson designed and built for himself in 1949,

one of the most important houses

in the world.

It's

a glass-and-steel trans-

parent vault on forty-seven acres of land near

New

Canaan, Connecticut.
is is

The only floor-to-ceiling

interior

element in the house

a brick cylinder

containing a bathroom and fireplace. Everything else

outside.
I'd

exposed

to the
for

always wanted to see

it,

and when
I

photographed Johnson
if

an Absolut vodka ad a few years ago

for

asked him

he would arrange

a visit
tor

me.

He

said, Sure,

no problem.
I

planned

to

photograph the house

a project that

Susan Sontag and

referred to as the Beauty book. Anything

that

we were

attracted to, or interested in, could be included in the Beauty

158

-. *..*..<

3se

n.

bat

are

:he

nd

cl-

ass

Jy

ut.

ler

he
:

or

sit

'or

iff

Philip

Johnson. Glass House.

New Canaan.

Connecticut.

2000

'?7T7

book, and we had that photographs of collection

started

making
I

lists. I

thought of the Beauty book

in

as a
I

would take

an old-fashioned way, when

was moved

to.

It

I drove over to the house one weekend. and appointment I was given an there, would be but he was. Johnson This was that me to occurred never
I

frustrating.

knew

that

should be sociable, but

wanted

to study the house.

So

was

little

grumpy.
I

And

he was a

little

grumpy

too.

He had assumed
else,

that

we would

chat.

kept saying, Oh, you can go do something

and

I did have one small converpictures. taking rudely, rather around, walked air system the worked. how He looked at him asked I Johnson. sation with

me

like

was

nuts.

He

said,

Annie, you open the doors.

in retrospect
it

The situation was awkward, but

to see

was

a rare opportunity
It

someone

living in a classic house.

all

To see

it

being used.

was

fall

and

there were leaves

over.

Johnsons dirty boots were thrown on the

floor.

He

was staring out

color.
I

at the rolling

lawn and the maple

trees,

which were changing

I

had always admired the

siting of the house,

in. It

and

remarked on

that.

Johnson laughed. He had moved every tree

landscape.
Philip
I

was

a carefully designed

Johnson was ninety-four when

visited the Glass House.

When
place

photographed William Burroughs, he was eighty-one and had

retired to

a small university

town

in Kansas.

The rent went up on Burroughss

and he decided

on the Bowery
Midwest was
a

in

New

York
to

in the early eighties

that the

good place

work and grow old

There was
It

in.

He bought

a rambling

bungalow with

a garage attached.

lots to

photograph.

An

old car

in the driveway.

A wood

porch.

was

like a set. I'm sure that there were

more than

few guns

in a closet.

The

living

room had

a tattered

couch and

a
I

writing table. Burroughs laid

down on

the couch for me.

He did everything

asked him to do.

I

And

then

ended up taking close-up pictures of his

head.

seem

to

remember

that Irving

Penn once

said that he didn't want to

portraits
taces

photograph anyone until they were older, and many of Perm's great
are of artists in old

age Colette,

Picasso,

Willem de Kooning. Their

show

that they've lived.

Burroughs had been photographed many times over

the years, and he always looked thin

and gaunt, but he was more

tragile

160

** ^ ^ ^v*i*r*^-m

* - %

\_VV

than
I

I'd

imagined.

asked him to

sit

in the garage, at the

back of the house.

nl

shot

him

in natural light

from

just inside

the garage door, about a foot or

light.

two
id.

in.

That's the best place to

It's

shoot someone in natural

I

You're out of
at the

the direct light.

diffuse.

When
I

got back to

New York and looked

riveting,

ras

contact sheets

thought that the head shots were

usually take.
I

although they

ise.

were not the kinds of pictures

portraits, but I'm

love Avedon's stripped-down

like that.

led

very uncomfortable coming in close

Avedon
were

id I

trusted the face to take the picture.

I

He
I

didn't claim that his portraits

er-

"true,"

but they looked like

reality.

usually pull back from the subjects of

iat

That
reasons
I

love

Diane Arbus.

used to study her pictures and try to figure out

in a frame. Just a little piece of
in.
It

aity

how
it,

she got just the right

amount of curtain
for the

and

but just the right

amount

room

she was working

.He

The portrait of Agnes Martin was taken for

my book Women.
it

was

nng
hat.

obvious that Martin should be in the book, although

that she

was not so obvious

She had
left

would agree
1

to a sitting.

She was famously

private.

ned

New York in
known

967, seeking the solitude and quiet that a successful and well-

painter,

which she was becoming, could not find

in the city.

She had

hen
dto

opted out of the commercial aspects of the art world. For years she lived in
an adobe-brick and log house that she had built by herself on an isolated

jlace

mesa
in a

in

northern

New
I

Mexico. Martin was eighty-seven

in Taos,

now and
I

living

the

retirement
I

community

where she

also

had

a studio.

was

told

Ijling

that if

went

to Taos

could meet her, although there was no agreement

dear
were

We
each other out. Neither of us talked very much. She
I

seemed

shy,

but every

an j
ling *
L

so often she

would

utter

maybe

thoughtful very seemed that sentences two

told that
it

and profound. After lunch

the next

we were

was

OK

to

come

to the studio

ea(

j,

morning

for a portrait.

intto

building. adobe modest of a Martin's studio was on the ground floor

Th
rtraits

which were some

faces

pr

there
,

was a table with more brushes and a

painted she where area paintbrushes in a metal can. In the four and bowls, some rag and

as*

the on canvases her sma11 Paintings propped on top of the table. She hung
I

161

William

S.

Burroughs.

iwrence, Kansas. 1995

*V

her while photograph she was working, would I herself. wall by artists. The way he had photographed had Liberman the way Alexander seventies, when she was on the East the in fact, in Martin, photographed

thought

Coast for the

first

major retrospective of her work. But we never got

to that

blue shirt, and I took a few clean a wearing studio the to came She point. I asked her to put on the striped shirt then but it, in her of photographs
did, and I shot some black-and-white She working. was she when wore she photographs. The only other person in the room was my assistant, Nick

Rogers,

who

helped

me with the strobe on

the black-and-white pictures.

We

shot the color portraits in natural light.

Martin was a serious student of Taoist and Buddhist teachings about

awareness and perception and she thought of art as a vehicle for revelation.

path to the sublime. Her paintings were not just Minimalist exercises.
spiritual quest.
I

They were aspects of a

She wrote once that her work

at

repre-

sented the "Ideal in the mind."

she

asked her what she did

said, Well,
I

the studio

when

came

in in the

morning, and she

sit

here and wait to be

inspired.

"

164

.*.***

Agnes

Martin. Taos.

New

Mexico, 1999

MY MOTHER
I

first

photographed

my mother
I

in a

formal way in 1974, after

had begun
cottage in

working

for Rolling Stone.

I

was

visiting
if

my

parents

at a

summer

the Catskills and

asked
I

my mother
a

she would dance for me. The session

was

a rite of passage.

was

photographer and she was a dancer.

in her mid-seventies,
I

Many

years
at

later,

when my mother was

upstate

photo-

graphed her

my place in

New York on

another

summer afternoon.

We had set up a chair for her in

when
old.
I

the shade on the lawn. She was nervous, and

asked her what was wrong she said she was worried about looking

She was a strong

woman who was accustomed

people expose themselves
I

to

being

in control of

situations. Its rare that

I

like that.

have often said that

don

have

a favorite picture,

although, as time
to

passes, that portrait of

my mother means more and more

me.

Its

probif

ably

my

favorite picture. Its honest.

there.

My

mother

is

looking

at

me

as

the

camera were not

166

Marilyn Leibovitz. Clifton Point.

New

York, 1997

SARAH
There are not
to smile.

many smiling people in my pictures. I've never asked anyone Almost never. Maybe a few times I felt had to, when people
I I

looked really depressed, but

the sigh of relief when
.

apologized for asking. You can almost hear

you

tell

someone they don t have

It's

to smile.

Where did "Smile

for the

camera' come from?

a tic.

A way of directis

ing attention to the camera.

--.-.%

"Look

at

the birdie." The smile

compo-

nent of family pictures. Mothers don't want to see their children looking

unhappy.
portrait

My

mother would hire

a local

photographer
all

to

make

a family

and he would inevitably ask us

fifties,

to smile.

They were canned

smiles. Forced. In the

everything was supposed to be OK, although

half the time

it

wasn't

OK.

It

took

me

years to understand that

to

equated

asking

someone

to smile with asking

them

do something
their

false.

There are people

who
is

smile naturally.

It's

temperament. And you

can catch a smile that

spontaneous, of the moment.

My

daughter Sarah
in

has the most beautiful smile.

children you hate to see
fake a smile.
it

When
I

you see

it

occurins so naturally
I

lost.

crumbled inside one day when

saw Sarah

168

Sarah Cameron Leibovitz.

New

York

City,

2002

Susan Sontag,

Paris,

2003

SUSAN
When Susan Sontag s book about photography and
of Others,
the jacket.

war, Regarding the Pain

to take her portrait for

was about
I

to

be published, she asked

me

photographed her

in Paris, across the street

It

from our apartment

with her.

on the Quai des Grands Augustins.

was

my last

sitting

171

HOLLYWOOD
The centerpiece of the 2007 Vanity Fair Hollywood issue was a series of pictures that told a classic, if perhaps slightly muddled, film noir story
involving a dead private eye, a blond heiress to a lemon-grove fortune
in

Los Angeles, a tough homicide detective, a tabloid photographer, and

It

several other characters along those lines.

took up thirty-three pages

in

the magazine. Michael Roberts, the Vanity Fair fashion and style editor,

came up with

the idea.

It

was similar

to the

kind of thing

had been doing

a

for Vogue, only in this case the scenario

was determined by

genre rather

than by a specific story like Vie Wizard of

Oz
I

or Alice in Wonderland.
it

Michael roughed out a narrative line and then

the pictures that interested

took

apart and looked

at

me and

rebuilt

it.

Some
up.

of the scenes are based

on

real films

and some of them

refer to

elements

in three or four different

movies. Several were scenarios Michael

made

The story
but
it is

is

an homage to

a style that flourished in the forties

and

fifties

placed in the present. The clothes aren't costumes. They're modern

clothes.

The car

at

the

murder scene
is

is

a 1964 Chrysler Imperial.

is

The most

obvious departure from noir style

white. Black

that the story

not shot in black and

and white
I

is

limiting as far as tone goes.

a digital

You have

to light

it

very bright and hot.

had begun using

camera

several

months

172

of

)ry

ine

nd
in

:or,

ing

iff

at

;ed

ait

;ies

ost

tit

tbs

Sharon Stone. Anjelica Huston, and Diane Lane. Los Angeles. 2006

Kirsten Dunst, Bruce Willis,

and James McAvoy. Los Angeles. 2006

before the shoot,

digital color.
light.
I

and

felt

that

could get a sort of twilight feeling using

was setting the strobes maybe half a stop under the natural

Occasionally the strobe

light

would

lag

behind the camera, and the frames

that

had only natural

looked better to me.

The cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond worked with us for this portfolio. It

was interesting to get his take.

We

would roughly

light a scene

and then Vilmos would say,

What about

this or that? In the

beginning he

wanted us to use more small hot lights than strobes. You have
with the small lights. But

more

control

by the end of the shoot, Vilmos saw the advantage

stopping motion and you have better depth of
to light the street in the

of a fast light source. You're

field.

Vilmos showed us

how

murder scene

in the

rain

with Bruce Willis

and Kirsten Dunst and James McAvoy as the Weegee

figure.

There was a big Bebe night light a bank of twelve

HML lightslight

flooding the

background, but the foreground was shot with just the

from the old Graflex that James

to

McAvoy was
we

holding. The flashbulbs had

be changed each time

we

shot.
built

The murder scene was shot on a set

was reluctant to have sets built, and
it

on the Universal

backlot.

seems

to

me that the most

1

successful

Th
Mulholland Drive, over-

Mirren and Kate Winslet

West

--

-^w

vv

-w

^v

-^h.

^_*

^--*

^^-

mm

mm-

--

The

we did was with Anjelica Huston and Diane Lane in the powder room of
the
in

Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.

The

We

had

in

mind

Women.

It

didn't take long to shoot.

powder-room scene Diane came on the set, and

the
in literally ten

then Anjelica,

and they were so good that we were finished

This

haDoened asain and asain. The

r

These
couldn't get that ki

They
themselves that they use

pulling things out of places in

when

they

act.

story like this

easier.

is

complicated, with

many

parts,

and working

digitally
in the

made things

Not everyone was

available at

the

same time or

175

Judi

Dench and Helen

Mirren. Los

An

ieles,

2006

i,*.vv"

Helen Mirren and Kate Winslet,

New

York

City.

2006

same

city,

for instance,

and

it

was possible

to

photograph someone

later.

I shot Anjelica Huston and Diane after photographed was Sharon Stone Dench in the car was made and Judi Mirren Helen of picture Lane. The

in

two

different places.

It

was fun directing Judi Dench

actually there. She

to act like she

was

talking to

someone who wasn't

was saying, "You

bitch.
)-)

Why
she had that look. If

And
to stitch

two frames together,

we had been using film, we would have had but since we were shooting digitally, we built
working
digitally.

the final

picture in the computer.

I

was

afraid to start
it

It

was

whole new world. And

It

in

the beginning
tion.

meant working with more people.

with

was

tough

transi-

The
lot

digital technicians weren't patient

my

film assistants. There

were a
guys,
pants.
I

of fights. The digital guys thought they were superior to the film
film guys thought the digital guys

and the The

were acting

like

smarty-

digital

guys

made

it

sound

like

it

was

all

smoke and

mirrors. But

learned to love digital. The technology has transformed the

I

way we work.

The more

use

it

the

more

appreciate the possibilities.

178

.****,*)%*<

Jack Nicholson. Los Angeles. 2006

THE QUEEN
The pictures of Queen Elizabeth were taken
a

few weeks before she

visited
I

the United States for the 400th anniversary of the founding of Jamestown.

was the

first

American

to

be asked by the Palace to make an

I

official portrait
I

of the Queen, which was very flattering.

felt

honored.

also

felt

that

because

was an American

had an advantage over every other photoga portrait of her.

It

rapher or painter
reverent.

who had made

was

OK

for

me

to

be

The

British are conflicted about

what thev think of the monarch.

I

If a British portraitist is

reverent he's perceived to be doting.

could do

something

traditional.

Its ironic that

the sitting with the

Queen became

controversial. I'm

rather proud of having been in control of a complicated shoot. The contro-

versy arose about two

months

after the pictures

were published, when

the

BBC

claimed that the Queen had walked out while we were shooting. This

was completely untrue, and although they retracted the claim and issued an
apology to the Queen and to
of
its

me

almost immediately the scandal had

to

a life

own. The

story,

which came

be referred to as Queengate, wouldn't

resigned because of it.
I

die.

Eventually the head of

I

BBC One

When

was preparing

for the shoot,

I

thought about using the landscape

this

around Balmoral
180
I

Castle, in Scotland.

brought

up

in the first confer-

"V^H.

Elizabeth

II.

Buckingham

Palace. London.

2007

Elizabeth

II,

Buckingham

Palaco.

ndon, 2007

r. ^VXi%^EQw

ence call with the Palace.

said that

Americans thought of the Queen

as an
in

outdoors
Vie

woman.
I

had been influenced by Helen Mirrens performance

Queen and

couldn't help mentioning

how much

liked her character

line.

in that film.

There was a long silence on the other end of the

I

The second idea

on horseback.
Saturday at
clothes,
I

had, after Balmoral, was to photograph the

Queen

asked where she rode and they said she went riding every
Castle.
I

Windsor

said that
I

would love
if

to see her in her ridin

and

in a later

conversation

asked

she could stop during her

it

weekend ride and get off her horse and

do
a portrait

mount
it

again. That

is,

could

of her in the trees.

They

said no,

was not

possible.

She

just

rode the horse

and came back, and anyway, she didn't wear riding clothes
later

anymore.

few days

they said

it

was going

to

be Buckingham Palace

and no horses.
I

realized that
if
I

was going
in

to

need some time on the ground

for this.

asked

could

come

on

Monday and

scout the palace and then set up

the next day.

We would shoot the day after that. By this time we were talking
would be inside the palace or
in the gardens.

about whether the shoot

said that

They

they doubted that the

Queen would go outside, because the weather

I

wasn't

good, although she did take walks twice a day.

was thinking
I

that

we could dress her formally and have her stand outside.

portraits Cecil

had

in

mind

the

Beaton did of the Queen Mother

is

in the gardens.

The Queen
looked
to

the most photographed

woman

in the world, but

I'd

never

at

photographs of her with the idea that I would be taking her picture,

the

the

famous Dorothy Wilding portraits of the Queen made in 1952 for coronation the portraits that were used on stamps and banknotesis

she

very young.

The Palace sent

me some

photographs that had been

taken for her

Golden

Jubilee, the fiftieth

anniversary of her accession to the

five

none,
tel

when

several photographers

were each given

minutes

to take

picture.

The most informative one was taken by her son Prince Andrew.
him. That was a specific look
I

ne was smiling at

wasn't going to get.

I

Ihe people at the Palace

1

were concerned about what

was going

to do.

was reminded of the Karsh shooting with Churchill, where Karsh took
e C1 ar 8

ut of Churchill's

mouth and

got that great, scowling shot.

didn't

183

intend to

do anything

like that.

The

portrait that stood out for

is

me was

one

of Cecil Beaton's last pictures of the

cloak,
fears,

Queen. She

wearing an admirals boat

alleviate

and the photograph

I

is

very stark and simple and strong. To

began saying that Cecil Beaton was

my
I

point of reference.

few

people, including the

Queen, would

tell

me

that

had

to find

my own way.
him

Besides those early photographs of the Queen, the Lucian Freud painting
interested me.
I

didn't

understand

it.

It

seemed more of a

portrait of
it

than a portrait of her.

of just her head.
I

And

he seemed to dismiss her by making

I

a painting

prefer to photograph the full body. But

read that the

that

Queen

liked the portrait

Freud did, which meant that she understood

her role would be interpreted in

When we

arrived in
all

many ways. London on Monday we went

straight to the palace

and were shown

the rooms, including the throne

room eve ywh

was

except the private quarters.

a wintery sky
for this

And

then

we did

a scout of the back. There

It

and the

trees didn't

have leaves.

was an appropriate mood

r

moment in the Queen's life. There was no w ay,

in

however, that she was

ping to stand outside

For a
to

formal

attire.
all

sitting like this

you don't put

I

your eggs

in

one basket. You

I

try

have as

many
down

options as possible.
I

kept thinking that

somehow would
I

get the

Queen

outside, but
to a very

began choosing formal

outfits.

narrowed

the robes

handsome Order of the Garter

a

cape, but then

we

were told that she could only wear

for a gold dress.
I

white dress under

for a dress with

it.

We were lobbying
to
I

was also hoping

more body
and

it.

The

Queen wears very streamlined

her in something with

dresses

now
wear

that she's older,

didn't

wanted

more volume. But she

have anything

like that.

Finally everyone agreed that she could

a gold- and- white dress

under

the Order of the Garter robe.

The Queen was eighty years

taking off a
lot

old.

She was sturdy, but putting on and

of heavy clothes

is

tiring,

and she had

to

be dressed

in layers

to expedite things.

The gold/white dress became the

base.

Then when we

looked through the books of photographs of clothes

office

in the press secretary's

she

we found some fox stoles that made her look a little slimmer when sat. So we had a stole, the gold/white dress, and the Order of the Garter

184
:1

Elizabeth

II,

Buckingham

Palace, London,

2007

Queen her the by to given grandmother tiara diamond a chose also I robe. used was Freud Lucian amazing, but that crown The present. wedding as a
I

wanted something
I

lighter.
I

was

still
it

upset that

couldn't get her outside.

I

It

was so

beautiful out

there.

And

wasn't cold or raining or anything.

began thinking about

what Cecil Beaton had done. He brought

in flowered backdrops. Beaton

was big on backdrops. Perhaps because the pictures were made in black and white you don t notice them. They sort of go out of focus. By Monday night
I

realized that

could do something similar

digitally.

decided to photo-

graph the garden and the trees for a backdrop.

The pictures of the

trees

were taken on Tuesday. That night there was

Q Q
room
to use.
I

She knew what we had been doing to prepare, which

is

pretty

unusual.

had decided

to talk to her about being photographed,

first

and

mentioned Dorothy Wilding, who was the

official

woman

to

be appointed an

photographer for the royal family. Wilding took the 1937 corona-

tion photographs,

when

Elizabeth's father

became King. She was very

well

known, with

chic,

modern

studios in

London and New York and many

sitting

commissions. There are fifty-nine different poses from Wildings

with Elizabeth in 1952.
I

said that

was proud

to

be

in

such distinguished
there!

company, and the Queen snapped back, "Well, she wasn't even
took
I

A man

my picture."

Really,

said.

And
I

she said, "She wasn't in the room."

decided to change the subject.

reminded the Queen of another woman

photographer, Jane Bown,

for the

who

took the Queen's eightieth-birthday portrait

is

London

Observer.

Bown, who

the

same age

as the

Queen, doesn't
full

use assistants. She

came

to the palace alone, carrying

two bags

of equip-

ment.

had been

told that the

Queen helped her move

the furniture around.

nice.

Bown

took some quite nice black-and-white pictures. Very simple, but

as a "nice" picture of the

(What everyone thought of

Q Q

Wh
very pleased. "Yes, she came
all

the

way by

herself!" she said. "I helped her

move
186

the furniture."

auj

-,

u-^

"Well,

tomorrow

is

going to be the opposite of that,"

said.

The Queen moved away, and her press secretary came up and said that
she thought the
I

Queen and

had very good chemistry.

story.
style,
It

checked

later

about the Dorothy Wilding

seems

that, indeed,

Wildings assistants,
graphs. At

who were

trained in her

often took the photo-

one point she employed thirty-seven people, including retouchers

fifties

and printers, in the London studio, but by the early

she was spending

most of her time in

New York.
I

The Palace had given us twenty-five minutes with the Queen, so there
had to be a battle plan.

chose a grand reception room, the White Drawing

because of the
light

Room,

as the principal setting

from the
the

tall

windows.

Supplementary lights had been pre-set so that

when

Queen moved from

constructed a
in there

one spot to another they just had to be switched on.

gray canvas backdrop in an anteroom,

We had
come
Th

and she was

to

wearing

Th
exchanged
I

later for the pictures

had taken

in the

gardens the day before. balcony

didn't

want her

to

be wearing a

tiara in the gardens. After the

I

shot she

was

to

walk into the drawing room and

was going

to shoot her in
It

one direction and then turn around and shoot her in the other direction.

would be

as if

you were looking

at the

whole room.

Q
Th
for a

documentary.
_
r

would never have agreed to them being there

_

if I felt

__

Ihei
j

microphone picked up her saying,

"I've

had enough of dressing

the
hall. Later,

like this,

thank you very much," as she marched

of footage for the
the

down

when segments
it

BBC

were edited for a promotional

film,

appeared as

if
r
it.

Queen

into going than rather were stomping out of the photo session

Thus the brouhaha.

little a was thought we The Queen was about twenty minutes late, which the on up made be strange. When that happens, you never know if it can

other end.

My

five-year-old daughter, Sarah,

had come with

us,

and she
187

Elizabeth

II,

Buckingham

PaKice. London.

2007

the offered and tseved cur

this

Queen

flowers and

introduced

my

team. At

point
It

was

in shock.

The Queen had the

r

tiara on.

That was not the

that.

plan.

was supposed to be added

don't have

later.

Ihe dresser
I

knew

The Queen
and
I I

started saying, "I

much
in
I

time.

don't have

much

time,"

took

her to the

first

setup and

showed her the

pictures of the gardens.

I

think

she understood what

we had

mind. Then

walked her into the drawing

things were going well. She
said, "I'm not

room, probably sooner than

would have

if

composed herself when

a very

took some pictures. That's when she

I

good

dresser."

It

was touching.

found out

later that the

Queen does

her
I

own makeup. She

knew how
and
I

gets her hair

done once

a week.

tight

everything was, especially with the loss of twenty

minutes,

asked the

Queen

if

she would remove the

I

tiara. (I

used the

word "crown," which was a faux pas.)

might be better.

suggested that a

less

dressy look
is?"
I

And

she said, "Less dressy!

What do you
I

think this

thought she was being funny. English

humor. But

noticed that the dresser

and everyone else

twenty feet

who had been working

her.

with her were staying about

away from

We removed
out the

the big robe,

I

and

took the picture of the Queen looking

I

window, and then

said, Listen,

was a

little

thrown when you

first

came

in

and

have one more picture

I'd like

to try, with the boat cloak.

We

went back into the anteroom where the gray canvas backdrop had been set

That

Th
stole

was also done against the gray backdrop and then put in the White

The

wh ere

she's sitting.

forgot to shoot her standing there.

I

was nervous.

Right after

we

finished,

went up to the press secretary and said

how

Wh
Q
later,

was something the

I

BBC

missed: her resolve, her devotion to duty.

I

She

stayed until
little

said

it

was

over. Until

said,

"Thank

you."

We were finished a

before our allotted twenty-five

minutes were up.

189

THE PROCESS
The
first

time

went on the road with

a politician

was

in 1972,

when

worked with Hunter Thompson during the Democratic primary. George

McGovern won
a landslide.
I

the nomination but lost the election to Richard Nixon by

loved covering political stories then because politicians didn't

still

have any sense of themselves. They were awkward. They were

shoe polish in their
hair. Its

putting

much more

controlled now.

The process has also changed. For

change from film to
digital.
I

a photojournalist, this
first

means

the
I

noticed the

signs of this in 1994,

still

when

was

in Sarajevo

during the

siege.

Photographers were

using film, but

they were scanning their negatives and transmitting the

files

over

satellite

phone
digital

lines.

By 1997, when

went on

a trip to Africa

with Hillary Clinton,

I

cameras were

available,

although not

many people had them.

that trip.
I

think

one person may have had

since
I

a digital

camera on

It

had been

a while

had been on the road by myself, and

rolls

was fumbling around and

I

dropping

of film and getting the exposure wrong.

envied the guy

with the digital camera. Hillary would

at

come

to the

back of the bus and look

digital,

what he had taken. There were problems with

light

of course.

It

was

hard to reconcile super

and super dark

values. Its

still

not as good as

film in that respect. But digital handles low-light situations

much

better.

190

Hillary Clinton.

New

York

City,

2003

Barack Obama, Raleigh County Convention Center, Beckley. West Virginia 2008

Now,

for the

way

work,

it's

possible to go out with one or two digital

mid-range zoom. I don't have and a lens zoom wide a maybe and cameras film for inside and high-speed and film color and black-and-white to carry
slower film for outside.
eled

Everything

fits

in a small

backpack.

When
way

trav-

with Barack

Obama

during the primaries

in 2008, the

the

AP

photographer operated fascinated me. His backpack was his

office.

As soon

Wi
The
covering and before
it

was over he was back

at the press table

with his

laptop, editing his pictures.

He would

transmit a few of them to the bureau

and

within ten or fifteen

minutes they were on the wire. Speed was the

thing.
I

The

first

pictures sent out were the ones that were picked up.
I

was shooting for a monthly magazine, so

had the luxury of looking

I

I needed to. if again out going then and studio my pictures back at at my He's body. whole Obama's photographing found myself pulling back and

very graceful

man. Very elegant, with a

little

swagger.

had

to

do

a portrait
|

plane. his for running maybe of him for a cover and I wanted him moving, on working plane, the in him That didn't work out, so I did a portrait of
a speech.
I

insisted

on taking the picture when

the plane was in the

air. I

wanted the backlight from the window. You

light until

don't get that blown-out back-

you're

up

in the clouds,

and

it

was important to
is

me

that the

picture look natural.

sitting

Up

above the clouds

several stops brighter than

on the ground.

between hop short a had we The first time I tried to take the cover picture
cities,

and

just as

was ready

to

go

was sitting was Obama up front where

I

told that

he had fallen asleep and they didn't want to

a couple of weeks
fell

wake him.
later
I

had

to

go

home and do some other work, and

the

caught up with

campaign again and got on the plane and he

asleep again.

He had

been putting in fourteen-hour days for

campaign longest the was months. It

The

They

193

Monum-Mt

Valley.

An.

i,

1993

,,-,,

THE

ROAD WEST

have a small but carefully selected collection of vintage photographs.

Pictures that
picture of a

mean something

to

me.

One

of them

is

a black-and-white

photothe of center the through stretching highway two-lane route the was highway The graph until it disappears into a flat horizon. picture The Depression. the families took west, looking for work during
was taken by Dorothea Lange in 1938
country for the
story

when

she was traveling around the

It

Farm Security Administration.

makes me think

of the
a

Lange told about one of her

earliest field trips. After

finally

spending

month on the road in southern California she was It was raining and she was exhausted and she had
her.

heading home.

of ahead drive long a

She had been working up to fourteen hours a day bringing back hundreds of pictures of destitute farm workers.
for

weeks and was

Somewhere

that sign a eye her of south of San Luis Obispo she saw out of the corner
said

Pea-Pickers Camp. She tried

to put

it

plenty of pictures of

migrant farmers already.

had She mind. her out of her about worried She was

the in camera her equipment, and thought about what might happen to U-turn. a made and rain. She drove for about twenty miles past the sign

She went back to the sign

and turned down

muddy

road.

A woman

was sitting with her children on the edge of a

huge camp

of makeshift
195

workers migrant living thousand there. three maybe were tents. There of them one of frames, the woman six shot and Grallex her out took Lange
while side the to off distractedly staring
faces in her shoulders.

two of her children buried

their

The image of the

woman and

her children
life

became

the most important

photograph of Dorothea Lange s

sion.

and the iconic picture of the Depresno mystery

When
involved.

I'm asked about

It is

my work,

try to explain that there

all

is

work. But things happen

the time that are unexpected,

uncontrolled, unexplainable, even magical. The

that

work prepares you

soft light

for for

moment. Suddenly the clouds

roll in

and the

you longed

appears.

196

there.

)man
their

rtant

pres-

stery

cted,

for

J for

Monument

Valley, Arizona,

1993

***'*.",

^**B

--mu

EQUIPMENT TEN MOST-ASKED QUESTIONS

PUBLISHING HISTORY

CHRONOLOGY

*.

utAiiAvV

y^rjvvwuua=ri
V K.

EQUIPMENT
Arnold

Newman
the

said that
I

photography

is

one percent

talent

and ninety-nine percent

location and we've

moving

furniture.

think about that sometimes

stage, the lights, the

when were on

moved
again.

set the
again.
is
I

backdrop, sandbags, fans.

And moved them

And

just

have to close

my

eyes to everything that's being done. The

manual labor
It

daunting.
I

didn't start out that way. In the beginning,

if
I

traveled alone.

carried

my

equip-

ment and
a style.

used a

light

would

set

it

up myself. Some people took the

results as

writer for

American Photographer once said that the umbrella and strobe

reflected in the mirror in

device."

my

portrait of

As
it

recall,

walked into the

Jimmy Carter was a "skillfully implemented room holding the light and set it down and
I

plugged
I

in

and started taking

pictures.

didn't think about

it.

first

worked with an

assistant in 1975,

during the Rolling Stones

show,
I

tour.

wanted
up,

to
I

photograph the band together right

after the
r

when

they were

pumped

and

had been talking

all

to

them about

this for

w eeks.

told

them how

fantastic they looked

in Los
set

sweaty, but
I

could never get them to stop for the photograph. So one night

Angeles

hired an assistant

who

helped

me hang
to
I

a roll o\

seamless paper and

up

a strobe outside the stage door.

They had

walk across the paper

to get to their cars.

When
If
I

they saw

it

they laughed and stopped and

got four or five frames.

assistant there to help
I

borrowed someone's studio there would usually be an

I

out, but

didn't start
I

working regularly with

my own
I

assistants until

moved

to

New

York, in 1977.
I

didn't hire

someone

full-time until

had

my

first

studio, in 1981, and

found the new arrangement frustrating. The

saw.

assistant didn't automatically see what

Everyone sees things

to

differently,

and he often

didn't

know what
I

to

do even

it

he

was standing next

200

me.

had watched Dick Avedon work and

didn't understand

^BVt-

percent

udv
ed them

me.

The

v equip-

esults as

Paul Gilmore. Dennis Devoy.

d
strobe

Hennck Olund, Karen

Mulligan, Laura Crawford,

D.C.,

Kathryn MacLeod. Cabinet

Room, the White House, Washington,

December 2001

^merited

ami

why

it

couldn't be like that.

Avedon didn't have to

tell

his assistant

where

to

move

the

light. It

anted

to

years.

many for together working from came That seemed to be done by osmosis. which happened, it before shoot Reluctantly, I had to learn to talk about the
right.
It

I lp and

didn't

seem

took away the mystery.

is

looked

The job description for an assistant

taken

pretty loose.
I

Over

time, assistants have

it

in

Los

on

roles

couldn't have envisioned

when

started working. For instance, they

It's

set up

have

become indispensable

as stand-ins for pre-lighting.

very important job.

ieir

Nick Rogers,

who

has been

my

first

assistant for

many

years;

Kathryn MacLeod, the

first the among were producer on Vanity Fair shoots; and the stylist Lori Goldstein if they Even ideal. not is people who did this for me. Pre-lighting with any stand-in

H toV
j81>
;

the as proportions are hired especially same the have don't stand-ins as body doubles, it have you think and subjects. Everyone's proportions are different. So you pre-light
a as good so was Nick right and then the don't. you realize subject walks in and you matter no bad, stand-in that after a while I didn't want to use him. He never looked

ee

<W
f*

what kind of light was

on him.
201

The White House, Washington, D.C 1976

My

assistants

used to check out new equipment and work on lighting problems

last
It

in the studio.

Our

studio was in an old double garage in Chelsea.

It

was

vast,

with high ceilings.

was the studio of

my

dreams, but

realized

didn't

need

it.

My
is

best pictures are taken

on

location.

Anyway, the studio got too

big.

We

had

a lot of

equipment that wasn't necessary. Things were getting out of hand. Having
a little like
office in a

a studio
I

having a fancy

car.

It

doesn't help you take better pictures.

Village. 'Ihe assistants

Now

have an
keep

townhouse

in the

West

have
is

room where we
work on

just

enough equipment

for a small portrait shoot.

There

an area for meetings.

My
ot

studio
is

manager and the

in a design

archivists have spaces. Postproduction

that has several

the pictures
a

done

room

computer

stations.

There are
rent.

number

fully-equipped photo studios in the neighborhood that

a portable studio

we can

And we can set up

anywhere

if

we need

to.

CAMERAS AND FILM My

lens,

first

camera was

Minolta SR-T 101.

It

came with

55mm

which has

narrower depth of focus and angle of view than the

at

35mm lenses that

I

many
I

of the other students

the San Francisco Art Institute were using.

this lens for

couldn't

afford a

new

lens, so

worked with
a little sloppy
in the

about a year.

It

was

good learning

experience.

You can be
I

with a wide-angle lens. 'Ihe

It

55mm made me very

in learning

aware of what
202

was putting

frame.

was good discipline

how

to

The
I

stepped
vear,

up

to the subject
I

and
I

if

wanted

wider shot

stepped back. After that

I

first

when

decided that

was serious about photography,

reluctantly sold the

Th
using a variety of
I

cameras, but the most

common

were Nikons and

I

Leicas.

have always been a see-through-the-lens photographer.

use a single-lens reflex

is

camera.
going to

With an SLR

like the

Minolta or the Nikon, you see precisely what image

be on the film. In a rangefinder camera, such as the Leica,

you view and focus

through a separate
you
start

window
it's

rather than through the optical system of the lens.

If you're

Once

with an SLR,

very hard to switch over to a rangefinder.

not careful

with a rangefinder,

it is

easy to cut off

some of the bottom of a

certain point,

picture

and leave too

much room

at

the top.

think that,

at a

some of the

great photographers

who had used Leicas for a long time, like Cartier-Bresson, didn't even look through
the
Jems

eyepiece to focus

and frame. Susan Sontag told

me

that she didn't realize that

Cartier-Bresson

was taking her portrait when he was

sitting across

from her with

his

vast,

camera in his lap.

In

M
oti
lio
is

the early days, Rolling Stone was printed on cheap paper

in

an

1"

x 17" format and

distributed folded over.

turn a

The cover image was an

" 8!/ 2

1" vertical.

It's

very awkward to

35mm camera

like the

Nikon on

its

side to shoot vertically. I'm convinced that

after 1978,

e an

mere's
I

oven a distortion.

The format of the magazine became squarer

and

keep

decided to try a Hasselblad for the covers. All

you had

to

do was cut

off the sides of

die picture a bit to

't

create a cover for Rolling Stone.

still

Most of the

pictures for the inside

little

tuies

the

magazine were

shot with a Nikon because the Hasselblad seemed a

too

er of

lear

and unrealistically sharp.

The bigger negative

made

for a

handsomer image, but

taking a picture, lhat

:tup

you couldn't
II

convey the sense that you were simply in a

room

was not "photography."

Combined with my

over-lighting, the

work

got further and

further

away from natural. Most of the early conceptual pictures were taken with the
those

Hasselblad.
tli

In the seventies,

worked with

24mm

lens occasionally, and when

I

look
call

at

Pictures
Idi

now they seem very

much

of the period and not very good.

them

my

lli:

bell-bottom pictures. They're distorted.

'V

You

a with subject the to close could get pretty

tarn lens, hut

III

when used
I

it

in the seventies

we

didn't get that close. If I

was working
respectful.

situation

with a

lot

reasonably was everyone of other photographers,

203

people. other of front in standing weren't People

By the

eighties,

however, when

was

working

for Vanity Fain things

had changed.
York.
I

remember going

to cover the trial of

to the court-

John Gotti, the

house, and
I

mob

boss, in

New

took

my

little

cameras down

discovered that the other photographers had lenses that were preposter-

ously wide. The standard lens was

14mm
I

to

24mm

by then. Photographers would

stand right next to the subject.

lenses,
I

If

stood back and took a picture with

my

regular

was getting the backs of the other photographers' heads. They were practically shoving their cameras in the subject's face. It was too cutthroat for me, and I didn't do

many more

of those kinds of stories.

I

In the mid-eighties,

began using a Mamiya RZ67, a medium-format camera

avy

that

Th
I

began shooting with a

to focus.

digital

camera. The only real problem

had with

it

was

that

it

was hard

But

it

was

inevitable that a
It

medium-format camera was going

to be
I'd

harder to focus than a

give the pictures

35mm.

wasn't just

me who had me
is

the problem with focusing.

camera

to

my

assistants to

make some

Polaroids or test the lighting and their

a certain

would always be out of

tell

focus. (That gave

amount of

pleasure,

since assistants love to

you
I

that

what you've done

out of focus.)

In the late eighties,

when went through my

work from 1970-1990,
I I

archives looking for pictures to put in

the retrospective of my

became

nostalgic for the spontaneity

of my early

35mm

pictures.

had spent the previous few years working on covers and

I

advertising and had put other kinds of work aside.

I

was doing mostly set-up camera

again.
I

pictures.
all

liked the set-up pictures, but

wanted

to use a

35mm
I

tested

the

35mm
of the

cameras and decided

to stick with

Nikon.

liked their lenses, although none

new

lenses

seemed

as sharp as they

used to be.

And

there

seemed

to

be some

drop

in the quality of

black-and-white

film.

Maybe

it

was simply the way they were

processed, but, for whatever reason,

wasn't as
I

my new prints

didn't look like the old ones. There

as

much cadmium

in the

paper they were printed on. The paper wasn't

I

warm.

used a

35mm

camera very

rarely for assignments in the nineties, but

a nice rangefinder

found myself
that

experimenting with the Leica M6,

constructed in such a way that
to use
it.
I

camera with

winder

was

didn't

have to pull

my eye away

from the camera body

for right-eyed
all

(I'm left-eyed,

and cameras with manual winders are designed

is

people. The advance lever

on the

right side of the camera.)

began taking

my

204

'>*>'

'hen

he

trial of

the court-

'reposter-

?rs

wou

>

tract

didn't do

mera

that

to carry

nera unt

fas that it

Berlin.

1992

ring to he

;using.

I'd

personal pictures with the Leica.

death of

carried

it

around

in

my

bag.

photographed the

and

their

my father with

the

Leica 35mm black and

white.

Th
pleasure,

an ideal situation, since

to put
i

you couldn't use the

full

frame.

And the camera body and back

Blige for the

The
a

Mtaneitv

35mm

digital

camera, a Canon,
.

when photographed Mary

I

J.

Gap and

jvers and

There

pictures

When
t

;d ai

the

What
camera for the time being.
I

igh

none

be some

enjoyed the sense of spontaneity

I

got from the

35mm
lens.

digital
It's

camera, but

after

a
hey
were
'

while

missed the formality of the Mamiya's

140mm

a beautiful lens that

es

.There

used to take

some of my

favorite pictures.
lens.

The

portrait of

my

mother taken

for the

as

warm-

Women book was made with that

And

in Sontag Susan of the portrait

six
is

my

last

dmys
that

ell

was she when sitting with her. And Sarah the picture of my daughter It to. want you is a long lens, but you can make it feel a little wide if
It

months

old.

similar to the
is

?3mm on
era
ed

the Minolta.

It

lens. is graceful as a portrait

As

write,

Mamiya

working
:

ght-

all

fl

on developing a feasible full-frame digital back. In an ideal world, I I miss so that lens foe 35mm and the medium-format Mamiya with that

would have hot

much.

205

0i\
.

Walking Past Annie's Equipment, David Hockney, 1983

ADAPTATION Times change. For

instance, manufacturers of film established what was

accepted as "real" color, but the standards were arbitrary, and they evolved. In the early
nineties
I

realized that the snapshots

my mother

was taking with Kodak Gold were

more relaxed and spontaneous looking than the color transparencies I was working also admired the casual color of Nan Goldins work, with. They were less stilted.
I

and

became convinced

that

should move from transparencies to color negative.

I

explained this to the magazines

worked
I

for,

and they said absolutely

just

not.

The

printers

and
it

art directors flipped out,

but

told

them they would

sitting in a

have to learn
office

to live with

and learn how

to print

it.

They were

room

in

an

and the photograto

phers were out in the

ibility. It

field

dealing with changing conditions.

We

needed

have

flex-

took some time for everyone to adjust, but color negative became the norm.

DIGITAL The problem

had with the

digital process in the

beginning was that

it

was

big production. There were suddenly a lot big shoots, like a cover shooting or a

more people on

a set. Technical people. In

more set-up shooting, or

in case
all

advertising, there were

I

two towers of equipment and an extra computer

tethered to a machine, and things went
a Ferrari.
I

one of them went down.

It

was

wrong

the time.

was

like

working with

got used to seeing the pictures on the monitor, and then everything shut
I I

down when the computer crashed. After a while, realized that was trying to do too much on the set. It simply wasn't necessary to make adjustments on the monitor while
I

was shooting.

decided to concentrate on taking pictures.

206

Wh
saw in
the Polaroids that

you were getting what you were

start

after, that

the lighting was

1 I
i

right and so on,

you would

shooting

film.

That method was frustrating, of course,

else,

because the picture

especially if

you wanted would inevitably be on the Polaroid and nowhere

involved. Everything
digitally,
is

movement was
it.

was building up

to that,

and you
that used

wanted to
to exist

copy

What's great now,

that

you can keep the image

get to see

only on the Polaroid. So

you're editing as

you shoot
go.

less.

You

what you're doing.

On

some
I

level

you

believe that

you are better able to capture what you

intensity in a digital
file.

really see in color

with

digital.

There's a distinctive

Digital gives a
all

more honest view of how

I

things actually look,

pictures to
rfiat
v,

and with the advent of

these possibilities,
that
is

still

want the

look like they're real.

Whatever camera helps me do

the camera I'm

going to use. I'm not nostalgic

about cameras.

When

talk

about

how

important the

the early

camera
it

is

to

me,

mean

the idea of the camera.

What photography

does. I'm not into

that concern

)ld were

because of the equipment,

and I'm not concerned with the things

to use

more

working

technically acute
light

people.

want

whatever helps
I

is

wort.

with faster speed

and fewer problems.

as
I

me take a picture in all kinds ot changed my 35mm digital camera lour

I

;ative.

times in

one

year.

As soon

hear there's a better one out,

try

it.

printer-

ive wi

lights

Helmut Newton used to

tell

me
it

that

should throw away

my strobes. Helmut
known who could
he needed
to,

otosra-

was a master of natural light.

shoot in
contrast.
his best

He was the only photographer

to his

I've

ive

fle.v

twelve-noon

light.

He used

advantage those hard shadows, the

if

norm.

He knew how

to work with assistants and he could light

but

work was done simply. He usually traveled with

just his cameras,

and
I

if

he

it

&

wanted an assistant he

would

hire

someone

local for the day.

He

thought that
I

was

In pie. 3

burdened

down by
I

the strobes.

He was no doubt
You

right to an extent, but

like to

have a

re

were

broad palette.

work. to ways of vocabulary wanted to go into a shoot with a large

is

was

Natural light

the greatest teacher.

place the strobe so that

it

follows the

ie'
shut

direction of the natural light.

is
too

another direction.

Adding

do

When

you're

working inside, you try

it.

from coming by light natural You try never to fight the studio. daylight a makes strobe to the natural light outside and like looks light remember what natural
to

see if you
as natural

can re-create
light

I've

never been able to

make

strobe light

look as beautiful

207

My
The
rest of the picture can be
lit

with natural

light.

But you have to be prepared

to use a

back-up

fill

light.

light that usually

comes from the direction of the camera.

Th

When
ires.

the light levels are low. That

The tones are most even then.

that shooting

at

sunset was too stressful.

An

assistant

would be on the horizon with

We
Th
the guys didn't want to pick

up any of the equipment.

hill

Its better to

shoot

at sunrise.

After the sun

comes over the

you

still

have time to work.

Lighting outside meant carrying around

my own

sun. In the seventies,

when

was

working
case,

for Rolling Stone,

feet

found the smallest strobe boxes that existed and

a small

about three

long and a foot deep. The shelf on top held two lightweight Pic

stands and two umbrellas. The lower shelf, which pulled out, had compartments that

held a
meter.

Norman 400 pack and two Norman heads. There was also room for a light Some days you couldn't pick the case up. It was before anyone thought of putting
first,
I

wheels on cases. At

got

power from weird transformers

that at the

that

would plug

into

my car battery,
After a while
I

which usually meant

end of the shoot the car wouldn't

run.

started traveling with generators

I

and 2400- and 3200-watt-per-second

to

Balcar packs because

cially

thought

needed more power

match the natural

light, espe-

on bright
It

days.

We

would be on the beach with huge power packs and noisy

much. The pictures were looking too formal and
lights were.

generators.

started to be too

stagey

and

overlit.

The subject was pretty much stuck where the

advances
in

Ironically,

technology have

made

it

possible for

me

to take

Helmut

Newton's advice about having too

shooting
at

much equipment. With

less light,

digital cameras, you're

higher speeds and you use

so you don't need high-powered

strobes. I've pared

down

the

list

of things

we

take on a shoot

our

kit.

I'm working

now

with battery-powered Profoto packs that weigh about ten pounds apiece. Since
in,

they don't have to be plugged

I'm

more mobile.
on
a

can go out with two battery packs

I

and two small Profoto umbrellas.

rent

If I'm

complicated shoot, or a cover shoot,

can

more and bigger packs and

lights.

208

the

f,

u
to
i

)ared

imera.

the begir

ost phot.

inally ded

torizonwii

dark.

id snakes

)ot at sum-

when

d and

sir

26th Street Studio.

New

York

City.

2000

ghtweight

artments

LIGHT
|
,r

METERS

When
down
Th
the strobe,

for

decided to tone

we made
barely

it

even with the natural

light rather

than

itt

ghto

iU

way things looked

D

when they were

lit.

refined, seemed pictures darker The

ib U' ouldnt

mysterious.

tt-per-

al light,

espe

The

:ks

and

They
fl'

ial

and

sis

We
The

take

Hdt

Wh
on
a tripod,

neras,

the picture looks different than

when

the camera

is

held in

your hand, ine

My
I'm

i*

and

you've tripod, the renegotiated it. By the time you've have you tripod, a Something ,u^^a t u_* i* f^^,rc ct^nHina un. With
I

won't use

lost the

moment
;

apiece-

atteryr

With
'

You're not

shoo^

coming

straight on. You're fine tuning

by

bit little a in pulling yourself

and then out a

little bit.

209

Annie with Nick Rogers, Houston, Texas, 2008

FANS
fan,
real

There's a tendency to put a fan in

one place and turn

it

on. If you have a big Ritter

which takes

a truck to get in, you're creating a very big wind. Needless to say, the

wind

doesn't

work like that. I went

to

to

Cornwall once, to photograph the landscape

castle.
I

where King Arthur was said

have had a

was going

to use

it

as a

background

for a portrait of Roger Federer as Arthur.

We had a cape for him, and my first assistant,

was
late in the day,

Nick Rogers, put the cape on

to test

it.

It

and we were on
real

a bluff,

and the cape moving

from
just

in the

wind was incredibly

is

beautiful.

The

wind

doesn't

come

one

side.

When wind
is

constant, you

blow the person away. What makes

of direction.
Julie

something look nice

Paul Gilmore
is

intermittent

movement and change

My assistant
as the Blue

a master of the fan.

When we photographed
One was
in the front,

Andrews

Fairy for Disney and

we had

to

blow her dress up underneath

her,

we had

tour fans.

We kept them
one was
at

all at

very low

levels.

two were on

either side,

and

the back. All of them were going at different speeds.

MUSIC

Bill

King always had big fans running on

I

his sets.

The fans were

I

a distraction.
it

They focused attention on the process.

camouflaged
ground.
It

use music

when

shoot. In the beginning

isn't just

my

inability to talk to people.

But the music on a shoot

right

back-

raises the

mood,

sets a tone.

The

music

at

the right time elevates the

situation.

Music can make or break

a shoot.

210

OXi

...

i^v

ig Ritter

say, tie

ndscape

cground

ssistant.

bluff,

it come

makes

issistant

the Blue
fans

ur

ide,

and

raction

it

nning
back-

st

ates

the

TEN MOST-ASKED QUESTIONS

1.

What

advice do you have for a

young photographer who

is

just starting out?

is

I've said

about a million times that the best thing a young photographer can do

to

stay close to

home.

Start with
it

your friends and family, the people

to

who

will put

up with
subject.

you. Discover what

means

be close to your work, to be intimate with a

that

Measure the difference between

and working with someone you

don't

know

as

much

about.

Of course

there are

many good photographs

really saying
I

that have nothing to

that

do with
pictures

staying close to

home, and I guess what I'm

is

you should take

of something that has meaning for you.

Stone,
I

When

was

young photographer

at Rolling

learned that what

did mattered. This

may have been because I was

published,

but whether you're published or not, you have to care about what you do. You might

even seem to be obsessive about

it.

2.

Whats your favorite plwtographl?

I

don't have a single favorite photograph.

What means

the most to

me

is

the body

of my work. The accumulation of photographs over the years.

3,

Whos
The

the

most

difficult

person you've ever photographed?

difficulties usually don't like the weather.

have
It's

much

to

do with the

subject.

What
a

causes prob-

lems are things

too sunny or too dark. You haven t finished shooting

and the sun

is

going down.

If

it's

a big production,

you might have

bad

hair person.
real

Bad makeup. The strobe

doesn't fire fast enough, or doesn't fire

at all.

Those are
I'd

problems. But there certainly are people

who

are a pain to

work

with.

be crazy to

name them. You

the

can't

be indiscreet

in this business.

That being
in

said, in

my experience
the longest.

most

difficult

people are the people

who

have been

show business

212

1SN

Especially those

who have been

in

show business

since they were children.

Not

all

of

They
that

they have a very

poor sense of reality.

4.

How many pictures do you

Certainly fewer than
I

take?

did

when was young. But don t worry about it.

I

It

varies.

It

takes

what

it

takes.

5.

Are you happy with the

I

move from film to digital? remember when Kodachrome II was phased out
bought cartons of it and stored
is
it

in the seventies.

A lot of photogbottom
it.

do

is to

raphers
that
it

in their refrigerators. But the

it

line

was

upwi

was gone. Digital

I

here whether

we like

or not.

You

can't fight

In the begin-

subject,

ning,

let

the process take over. Productions

were incredibly complicated. The rhythm

I

(now do

as

of the shoot

changed.
at

had

to explain to the subject that

was going
little
it

to

go across the

with

room

to

look

the picture

on the monitor, which seemed

set,
it. I

rude. But

now I

don't

pictures

usually
laptop,

have a monitor on the

and

if

do,

don't look at
at

very often.

We just use a

and I'm not tethered to

don't even look

the back of the camera very often.

Wished

We're almost

back to the rhythm of shooting with

digital.
is

film.
I

mi

You can photograph the night with

Less strobe.
There's

Darkness.

use

much

less light
little

now.

You can see more. The downside

that the pictures can look a

It's

crude.

almost too

much information
it is

in

them.

new language

that needs to be

translated,
e body

and

think that
lit

photogflash early of Think improve. only going to

raphy.

Things were

up

in a

harsh way in

how learned we then and beginning, the

to
in

control the lights. Digital

history.
It's

this for appropriate seems produces a look that

moment

distinctive.

Digital
the road
ooting

was born

for reportage.

It's

terrific for working spontaneously.

can go on
at

with less

equipment. I'm not carrying bags of film around.

And

can shoot

unbelievably high speeds.

grainy pictures.

having avoid to possible, ASA We used to shoot at the lowest

better than they used
to.

erson-

Higher speeds are rendering images much

re

real i

'to

different fi

rien

The fundamental difference

is

that

you have

a pretty

good idea who

before.

the well-

ng

est

known person

is

when you meet them. They've been photographed

You learn
213

This

nee

be practical have to about you how and busy, always much almost are famous people well-known people Photographing has them. built-in with get to going you're time
logistical

people with other an few a quite often are There problems.

of the shoot.
It's

interest in the

outcome

not always fulfilling work trying to meet the expectations

stars, for instance.
It's

magazines have about movie

create the difficulties.

not the movie stars themselves

who

Most of them

are fairly

normal people.

7.

Where do you get your

I

ideas?
I

do my homework.
looked

When was preparing to photograph Carla Bruni, the new wife

I

Elysee Palace, the in France, of president the Sarkozy, of Nicolas of the palace.
I

looked

at pictures

at pictures

of other people

who had

lived in the palace. Pictures

of couples in love. Pictures that other photographers had taken of Bruni. She had been

photographed many times before.

in her that other

thought Helmut Newton had seen something

I

photographers hadn't.

knew

she was a popular musician, and

listened to her music.

Of

course

carry around with me, like a backup hard drive in

my

head, a vast
I'm a fan of
in the

memory bank
photography.

of the

work of the photographers who came before me.

if

student,

you

will.

collect

photography books. Something

Ih
the photograph
is

part of the idea.

When

When
afraid
I

was going

to miss

something

if

left.

remember working with

the writer

David Felton on a story about the Beach Boys and being surprised
point he just walked away.
hensible to me.
I

that at a certain

What

did

He said he had enough material, which seemed incomprehe mean he had enough? How could he even think like that?
it, it

thought that

if

you kept doing

would
began

get better
to

and

better.
is

As

became more experienced,

understand that someone who

that

being
situa-

photographed can work

tion.

for only so long

and
it's

you shouldn't belabor the

It's

Something

is

either going to

happen or

not going to happen.

not going to
is

suddenly turn into something

214

else.

Or

very

rarely.

What does happen

a lot

that as

eful,

since

soon as you say

4

it's

over, the subject will feel relieved

and suddenly look

great.

And

low mud
as built-in

then

you keep shooting.

There
ten

rest in

die

percent of what

see.

can be very frustrated, for instance, by natural

it

light.

Some-

pectations

times the light

on someone looks incredibly beautiful but

won't look the same. Photography
is

just won't translate into the

It's

selves who

photograph.

It

limited.

an

illustration of what'-

going on. Basically, you're never totally satisfied.

9.
e

How much

direction

do you

givei?

new

Th
certainly the case

it picture;

with set-up portraits.

By the time the

be

subject arrives we've figured

e. Pictor

out

what

is

possible for

them

to do.

You

set the stage for

them. Once they are there,

doing
all right.

had been

they like to
I

have some direction. They

like to

at least told that they're

iomethin!

forget

about that from time to time.

of my

lan, and

A
It

lot

work

is

post-decisive-moment.

It's

studied.

A kind of performance art.

that.

allow always don't circumstances but would be nice to be more spontaneous,

is

ad, a

vast

Ihere

often a limited

na

fan of

prepared as

you are

for

amount of working time, and one thing, you hope that something
to

certain goals. Nevertheless, as

else will

happen

too.

in ingm

the

10.

How

do you set people at ease and get them

do

the things that they do in your

pictures?
I

never set anyone at ease.

always thought

it

were they Either problem. was their

*
a
_b_ _^m

^ ^d

^h_

,'

x I

lb

That
had.
I

The
"nice" picture,

the

write'

but a good portrait photographer

is

looking for
I

something
people
at

else.

It

might

a cert

be a nice picture

and

it

might not.

know, however, that

do

set
it.

ease because

incoffl?

I'm very direct. I'm

!

that's and picture the take simply to there

like

th*

Most people don't

tional

like

having their picture taken.

at
it

It's I

self-confrontastressful, a

moment. Some people are better

than others.

people with best work

who
They

10 is

don't feel
the
situ

good about themselves. Or they

at talking to

feel

too good

&
that
is

accomplished
at

people, and
I

certainly can't talk to

very not I'm about themselves. pictures take and people

I

the

same time. For one thing,

look through a

viewfinder when

work. Richard
215

Avedon

seduced his subjects with conversation.

He had a Rolleiflex that he would look

Most of the
It

down

at

and then up from.

It

was never

in front of his face.

great portrait

photographers didn't have a

they talked.

camera

in front of their faces.

was next

to

them while

The
Windsor. They
animal
while,
lovers.

They doted on

their pugs.

Avedon

set

up the

portrait, talking

all

the

and

just before

he took the picture he told them a

story,

completely untrue,

Th
composure. He got the famous portrait of them looking anguished. Maybe if I live another fifty years I could do that. You have to admire
I

it,

though.

think the only form of seduction I'm capable of

is

the assurance that I'm a good

I've

photographer and that we're going to do something interesting.

to

never asked anyone

to

do something that
Ther

didn't

seem

right for

them.

And

don't ask

them

do something

Wh
Th

Tha
The
idea.
I

just

brought

it

to

life.

Realized
if

it.

It's

a collaboration. Especially
I

you're working with an entertainer, an actor or a

It's

comedian.
session.

never make people do anything. But I'm the photographer.

of
it

photo

lot

is

about

play. Painting the Blues

Brothers blue, for instance. Or

giving a subject a role, a fantasy, to act out. I'm interested in getting something unpredictable,
it's

something you don't normally

see.

Even

so,

when the picture

starts to

happen,

often a surprise.

216

vould look

at

portr

hem while

"

is

the

we
ing

great

all

tk

dy

untrue,

oroke

thei i

though,

I'm a good

ved anyone

something

out

several

?rformance

ist

one

was

ed

about.

ian was

her

actor

or

It's

photo

Or
istance.

unpre-

ling

to

of

218
4

PUBLISHING HISTORY
In 1977,

when Jann Wenner asked me

had run
in the

to prepare a fifty-page portfolio of pictures for

I

the tenth-anniversary issue

of Rolling Stone,

decided not to simply make a selection

I

of photographs that
started

magazine.

looked

at

everything

had done since

working.

It

was a

revelation. For

one thing, I had no idea that I had accumulated

so

many photographs. You

work

lose track of

them when
at

you're working every day.

it

And

you see the

get a sense

in a different

way when you look

You

from the distance of time. You

Looking
at

of where you are going.

start to see a

life.

the

body of work

gave
I

me

the impetus to go on.

had a chance to edit

my work most thoroughly when

Lift

prepared the books Annie

Th
Life

my

father.

Editing the

book took me through

the grieving process.

don't belong to me.
It's

'Ihe
editor's

books are pure. They are mine. The magazines

the

she or he way the material the use magazine, and the editor has every right to
just that art directors

wants

to. It isn't

and

editors at

magazines make

selections that

wouldn't necessarily
small.

make. Which they sometimes do.

Or

that they

run pictures too

cant
so

Which they used to do. Or that they put so much see them anymore. Magazines have quite specific needs.
which
is

type on the pictures that you

It's

a collaboration only

tar,

true of almost

all

assignment work.

'Ihe

following section illustrates

how and where

the pictures

first

appeared.

An

asterisk indicates that a picture

was published

originally in

an alternate version.

219

limcWurp: ampaign'72

m Future Fcar&l aoihmgmihcRisi P \h Mcantnftasrtww.ofMcGowrn AWhcrc

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24

24

25

31

32

Samuel Leibovitz

Silver Spring,

Maryland, 1972, Annie leibovitz: 1970-1990, Nikon

F,

Kodak Tri-X 400 3 Marilyn LeiboI

vitz Dulles International Airport, Virginia, 1972, Annie Leibovitz: 1995, Nikon F, Kodak Tri-X 400 5 R.ACHEI eibovitz Waterbury, Connecticut, 1974, Annie Leibovitz: 1970-1990, Nikon F, Kodak Tri-X 400 10 Si f-portrait San Francisco, 1970, unpublished,
i

Kodak Tri-X 400 15 Golden Gate Bridge San Francisco, 1977, unpublished, Nikon F, Kodak Tri-X 400 21 Richard Nixon leaving the White House Washington, D.C., 1974, Rolling Stone, September 12, 1974, Editor: lann Wenner, Art Director: Tony Lane, Nikon F, Kodak Tri-X 400 24 Hunter S. Thompson Washington, D.C., 1972, Rolling Stone, July 5, 1973*, Editor: Jann Wenner, Art Director: Robert Kingsbury, Nikon F, Kodak Tri-X 400 24 Hunter S. Thompson and GEORGE McGovERN San Francisco, 1972, Rolling Stone, July 5, 1973*, Editor: Jann Wenner, Art Director: Robert Kingsbury, Nikon F, Kodak Tri X 400 25 Hunter
Nikon
F,

220

'.-*.

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15

21

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Hcwthe
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26

29

37

38

LEIP'

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THOMPSON S HUNTER 25 400 California, 1972, unpublished, Nikon F, Kodak Tri-X Kodak Cy, ..... -., Annie Uibovitz: vvoli-.-. ;"* 19* lOM .X 4 TOM _ 26 400 Leffc0VI,, 1970-1990, Tri-X Tri Kodak 1970 i99)> Nikon Nlkon F, ,, Director: Robert Art : d, ,973 "-X400 29 Apollo .8, January '7,^"" Stone, F, Nikon 7 Cape Kennedy, Florida, 1972, Rolling (1978)', ^"""Vbr 7br (19 ne on IhngSto Ro Ki The ngsbury, Nikon F, Kodak 1975, Tri-X 400 31 ROLLING STONES ians Cleveland, Ohio, bmtor. , k 1975, 11, September Jodak Tri-X 400 32 The Rolling x Stones Philadelphia, 1975, Rolling Stone, " m Lane, Leibovttz: IV/U-i Annie 1977, Nikon F, Kodak Tri-X 400 35 Keith Richards Toronto, Designer: etc. I Ar Wenner, "" 37 MICK Jann g [agger Chicago, 1975, Rolling Stone, December 15, 1977, Editor: Nikon unpublished, " Mtler, Nikon F, Kodak Hk.achrome 64 EPR 38 Mick [agger San Francisco, .975,
s
-

Thom Thompson

A^

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45

53

54

56

57

38 Keith Richards with his son Toronto, 1977, A nnie Leibovitz: 1 970 1 990, Nikon F, Kodak [ri-X400 39 Ron Wood and Keith Richards Jacksonville, Florida, 1975, Annie Leibovitz: 1970-1990, Nikon 1, Kodak In \ 100 39 \li< K [agger, Andy Warhol, and Fred Hughes Montauk, New York, L975, The Rolling stones on lour (1978), Nikon F, Kodak In \ 100 40 Bian< a [agger, Earl M< Grath, and Ahmet Ertegun New York, 1972, Rolling Stone, August 31, 1972, Editor: [ann Wenner, Art Director: Robert Kingsbury, Nikon F, Kodak Tri-X 400 40 A\i>y Warhol, Lei Radziwill, Truman Capote, and Vincent Fremoni New York \mm City, 1972, Rolling Stone, August 31, 1972, Editor: [ann Wenner, Art Director: Robert Kingsbury, Nikon F, Kodak In \ 400 41 Warhol, Truman Capote, Danny Seymour, and Roberi Frank New Orleans, 1972, {nnie Leibovitz: 1970 1990, Nikon F, kodak Tri-X 400 41 Ki.nn Ri< hards Buffalo, New York. 1975, The Rolling Stones on lour (1978), Nikon F, Kodak Iri-X -400 43 MlCK
Annie Leibovitz: 1970 990, Nikon F, Kodak In \ lot) 45 [ohnLennon New York City, 1970, Rolling won wo Yoko Kodak Tn \ 400 47 John Stone, January 21, 1971, Editor: |ann Wenner, Art Director: Robert Kingsbury, Nikon Ono New York City, December 8, 1980, Rolling Stone, January 22, L981, Editor: [ann Wenner, Art Dne.tor: Mary Shanahan, Design
[agger Buffalo,

New York,

1975,

Director: Bea Feitler, Hasselblad 500

C/M, Kodak Ektachrome

PR 50

Ti

ssGali

u.iii r Syracuse,

New

York, 1980,

ife,

April 1981*,

222

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* 59

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Editor:

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Mamiya RZ67, Kodak

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75

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66 TonyKushnkr New York City, 1992, Gap*, Mamiya RZ67, Polaroid 665 80 66 Andrei Putman New York City, 1989, Gap, Mamiya RZ67, Polaroid 665 80 66 Joan Didion and Quintana Roo Dunne New York City, 1989, Clap, Mamiya RZ67, Kodak Plus-X 125 66 William Wegman and Fay Ray New York City, 1988, Gap*, Mamiya RZ67, Kodak Plus-X 125 68 Evander Holyfield New York City, 1992, Gap, Mamiya RZ67, Kodak Plus-X 125 71 l.i la Fitzgerai D Beverly Hills, 1988, American Express*, Mamiya RZ6" Kodak Ektachrome 64 EPR 72 Willie Shoemaker and Will Chamberlain Malibu, California, 1987, American Express*, Mamiya RZ67, Kodak Ektachrome 64 EPR 75 AlSharpton PrimaDonna Beaut) (are Center, Brooklyn, New York, 1988, Annie Leibovitz: 1970-1990, Mamiya RZ67, Kodak Plus-X 125 77 Arnold SCHWARZENEGGER Pretoria, South Africa, 1975, Annie leibovitz: 1970-1990, Nikon F, Kodak Ektachrome 64 EPR 78 Arnold SCHWARZENEGGER Pretoria, South Africa, L975, Rolling Stone, June 3, 1976*, Nikon F, Kodak Tri-X400 81 Arnold Schwarzenegger Malibu, California, 1988, Vanity Fair, June 1990*, Editor: Tina Brown, Art Director: Charles

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City, 1993,

Annie Leibovitz: 1995, Mamiya RZ67, Polaroid 665 80

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108

109

109

115

118

118

119

98 Carl Lewis

Pearland, Texas, 1996, Olympic Portraits,

1996, Olympic Portraits, Fuji 6x9,

Kodak In \ 100

Mamiya RZ67, Polaroid 665 80 100 Ch \ki ES Austin Atlanta, Georgia, Max 103 Bloody Bl< v< Sarajevo, 1993, innie Leibovitz: 1995, Contax, Kodak
1
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P3200 104 Dr. Sanja Bi-.saroyk Kosovo Hospital, Sarajevo, L993, Vanity Fair, October L993, ditor: Graydon Carter, Art Director: \nskoom Sarajevo, 1993, Vanity Fair, October 1993, Editor: Graydon Charles Churchward, Contax, Kodak T-Max P3200 104 ( Carter, Art Director: Charles Churchward, Contax, Kodak In \ *20 105 ( lo Sarajevo, L993, Vanity Fair, October 1993, Editor: Graydon Carter, Art Director: Charles Churchward, Fuji 6x9, Kodak In X 320 105 H VRIS PaSOVIC, Si san Son \g, AND ZDRAVKO Grebo Sarajevo, 1993, A Photographer's Life, ontax, Kodak Max 1200 108 Ni n/ \n IbriSimon u \m> his grandson Sarajevo,
1
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231

ANNIE LEIBOVITZ CHRONOLOGY

1949

Waterb
Leibovitzs six children. Samuel Leibovitz
is

a career Air Force officer,

and the

family lives on or near several different military bases during her childhood.

1967

Starts

freshman year

as a painting student at the

at

San Francisco Art

Institute.
first

1968 Spends summer with family

Clark Air Base in the Philippines. Buys

at

camera, a Minolta SR-T 101, in Japan. Starts sophomore year

cisco Art Institute (SFAI). Takes night class in photography.

the San Fran-

1969 Takes summer photography workshop

fall,

at

the San Francisco Art Institute. In the

fall

travels to Israel,

where she

lives in

Kibbutz Amir. Misses

Institute.

semester.

1970 In January, goes back to the San Francisco Art

Begins printing material

from

Israel.

Takes photographs of antiwar

rallies in

San Francisco and Berkeley.

One

of her pictures of a demonstration appears on the June 11 cover of Rolling

fall,

Stone. In the

starts senior year at SFAI. In

December,

travels to

New York to

photograph John Lennon,

who

is

being interviewed by Jann Wenner.

1971 Portrait of John Lennon appears on January 21 cover of Rolling Stone. Receives
a Bachelor of Fine Arts

from the San Francisco Art

Institute.
S.

1972 Covers the presidential election campaign with Hunter

Thompson.

&

1973 Listed

as "chief

photographer" on masthead of May 10 issue of Rolling Stone.

in Rolling Stone's

1974 Photographs of Nixon's resignation appear

The Photojournalist:
Schiller's

September 12

issue.

Mary

Ellen

Mark and Annie

Leibovitz

is

published in Larry

Masters of Contemporary Photography series (Alskog/Crowell).

1975 Works as tour photographer for the Rolling Stones.

1977 Rolling Stone

Feitler,

offices

move to New York. A

portfolio of her work, designed by Bea

appears in the tenth-anniversary issue of the magazine.

232

ttXZXi2X23SH3i&!E&

*-*-

a a

1980 Photographs John Lennon and Yoko

1981

Ono

the day

Lennon

is

murdered.

Commissioned

to take portraits for the prototype of the revived Vanity Fair

Feitler. Establishes first studio, at

magazine, designed by Bea

Street in

101 West 18th

Manhattan.
first

1983 Resigns from Rolling Stone in January. In April, becomes

contributing

photographer for the

new

Vanity Fair. Publishes Annie Leibovitz: Photographs

(Pantheon). Exhibition at the Sidney Janis Gallery in

New

York subsequently

Wash
Angeles; and venues in Europe.

1984 Receives Photographer of the Year

zine Photographers.

Award from

the

American Society of Maga-

1985 Accepts commission as official portrait photographer for the World

in

Cup Games

Mexico.

1986 Second solo

show

at

the Sidney Janis Gallery.

to create images for the Portraits adver-

1987 Commissioned by American Express

Photographers' Magazine of Society American the Receives tising campaign.

award for Innovation in Photography.

1988 Meets Susan Sontag. Commissioned

by the

Gap

to create portraits for the Indifor

viduals of Styles ad campaign. Receives

Portraits

CLIO award

American Express

campaign.
Fifty

published. Receives
into

new

studio at

CLIO award for Gap 55 Vandam Street.

Project. The

Individuals of Style campaign.

Moves

1990 Invited by

Mark Morris and Mikhail Baryshnikov to

document

the formation o f

White Oak Dance

Wh

Gallery Danziger James the ican Tour published. Exhibition of photographs at Interthe from in New York. Receives Infinity Award in Applied Photography
national Center of Photography.
Print

American

Express Portraits

campaign named

Age. Advertising by Decade Campaign of the

1991 Publishes Photographs, 1970-1990 (HarperCollins). First

in

museum
York

exhibition,
in

organized by the International Center of Photography Ihe D.C. Washington, in Gallery Portrait tion with the Smithsonian's National
exhibition travels widely in

New

conjunc-

North

America, Europe, Japan,

and

Australia.

23

by the Smithsonian published Leibovitz InstituAnnie by Photographs Dancers: 1992

tion Press.

1993 Makes portraits of people living with

tion educational campaign.

HIV

for a

San Francisco AIDS Foundaincludes

New

contract with

Conde Nast

work

for

Vogue and Conde Nast

Francisco Art Institute.
siege.

Traveler. Receives

an honorary doctorate from the San

Makes

first trip

to Sarajevo to

photograph the

city

under

"Annie Leibovitz: Sarajevo Portraits" exhibited

in Sarajevo.

at

the Art Gallery of Bosnia

and Herzegovina

1995 The Nippon Television Network Corporation sponsors the tour of "Annie Leibovitz, Photographs 1970-1990" in Japan and publishes an accompanying
catalogue, Annie Leibovitz, 1995.

1996

Named
Olympic

official

photographer for the

Summer Olympics

in Atlanta, Georgia.

Portraits:

Annie Leibovitz (Bulfinch) published.

at

1998 Moves into studio

547 West 26th

Street.
is

1999 Women, with an essay by Susan Sontag,

published

(Random House).
a series of

Exhibi-

tion of portraits at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Inducted

into the Art Directors
1

Club Hall of Fame. Photographs

nudes for the

2000

Pirelli calendar. Portfolio: Bibliothek

is

der Fotografie #9, 'Annie Leibovitz,

1968-1997"

published by Stem, in Berlin.

in conjunction with

2000

Stardust:

Annie Leibovitz 1970-1999 published

an exhibi-

tion at the Louisiana

Museum

of

Modern

Art,

Denmark. Receives the Living

Magazine

Legend award from the Library of Congress. Receives Medal of Distinction

from Barnard College. Wins three Alfred Eisenstaedt Awards
for

Photography, presented by the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. (Cover of the year: Jim Carrey, Vanity Fair. Single-image portrait: "The

Sopranos," Vanity Fair. Fashion photo essay: Puffy

Vogue.)
ft
i

Combs and

Kate Moss,

2001 Photographs a

series of landscapes for the

to

Nature Conservancy. Images are

published in In Response
vitz,

Place (Bulfinch). First child, Sarah

Cameron

Leibo-

born October
a set of the

16.

2003 Donates

photographs

in the

"Women" show to the permanent

Receives

collec-

tion of the

Women's Museum

in Dallas, Texas.

Women

in

Photography

Internationals Distinguished Photographer Award. Publishes American Music

234

MB

Institu-

(Random House). Exhibition opens at the Experience Music Project in Seattle and travels to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio; the Detroit
Institute of the Arts; the

ounda-

Hospital in London; and

C/O

in Berlin.

vork

for

2004 Susan Sontag dies on December 28.

2005 Samuel Leibovitz dies on February 3. Daughters Susan
elle

the Sa n

Anna Leibovitz and Samuof the thirty-five InnoSociety of Maga-

Edith Leibovitz born

May

12.

Commissioned
Building.

to

document the construction

fBosma

of Renzo Pianos
vators of

New York Times

Named one

Our Time by Smithsonian magazine. The American

names the January
22, 1981,

"Annie

zine Editors

John Lennon cover for Rolling Stone

panving

the best

magazine cover of the

last forty years.

The August 1991 Vanity Fair

cover of the pregnant

ji

2006 Decorated

Demi Moore places second. Commandeur in the Ordre des Arts et

des Lettres by the French

Exhibition

government.
debuts
the
Exhibi-

Photographer's Life published

(Random House).
San Diego

at

the Brooklyn

Museum and

travels to the

Museum

of Art;

High

iducted

the Fine

Museum of Art in Atlanta; the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, D.C.; Art Museum of San Francisco; the Maison Europeenne de la PhotograLondon; C/O
in Berlin; Alcala 31

for the

phic in Paris; the National Portrait Gallery in

in

Madrid; and Kunsthaus Wien

in

Vienna. The documentary Annie Leibovitz:

sister

ibo\'t

Life

Through a Lens, directed by her

Barbara Leibovitz, premieres on PBS

as part
e xhibi

of the American Masters series.

official portrait

2007 Moves into Greenwich Village studio. Commissioned to take the

Living
!

of
inction

Queen Elizabeth

II.

Marilyn Leibovitz dies on July

16.

2008
aeazine
)f

Named
Lair

the San Francisco Art Institutes

2008 McBean
Editors'

Distinguished Lecturer.
for the

Receives an
Jour-

American Society of Magazine

Portfolio.

award

2007 Vanity
from

'*
it:

Hollywood

Receives Urban Visionaries award

for Visual Art

the

Cooper Union.

aes are

Leibo-

coli

r >

236

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

STUDIO 2008 Karen Mulligan

Laura
Cali,

Georgina Koren, Matthew Currie,

Mitchell, Jenny

Jesse Blatt,

Hasan and Baha Gluhic, Caroline

Kim,

Christopher Peregrin, Elizabeth Elsass

assistants Nick Rogers, Paul Gilmore, Chad Riley

vanity fair Graydon Carter
Susan White, David Harris

Jane Sarkin, Kathryn MacLeod,

VOGUE Anna Wintour

Charles Churchward, Alexandra Kotur,

Jill

Demling,

Grace Coddington, Tonne

Goodman,
Jr.

Phyllis Posnick

conde nast

S.

/.

Newhouse,

CONTACT press IMAGES Robert

ken starr & CO. Ken Wylie agency Andrew Wylie

Pledge, Jeffrey Smith,

Dominique Deschavanne

Starr, Peter

Lev
Jeffrey

Sarah Chalfant,

Postemak

art

commerce

Jim Moffat
Centrello

Random house Gina

Kate Medina

Frankie Jones, Lisa Feuer,

Richard Elman, Benjamin Dreyer, Janet Wygal

BOX studios Pascal Dangin

AMILCARE

Marion

Liang, Catherine Gardere,

Mamie-Claire Cornelius, Will Kennedy, Tlieresa Grewal

pizzi

Massimo

Pizzi

Sandra Colosimo, Elena

Gaiardelli,

Cristiano Nardini,

Barbara Sadick

TEXT BASED

ON CONVERSATIONS WITH SHARON DELANO

editor Sharon Delano

EDITORIAL

AND PRODUCTION CONSULTANT Mark

Jesse Blatt,

Holhoril

production

Laura

Cali, Caroline Mitchell,

fenny

Kim

design supervision Matthew Chrislip

jacket design Ruth Ansel

'mage consultant Pascal Dangin

color and scans Box Studios

DESIGNED BY JEFF STREEPER

-.1

Published by Jonathan Cape 2008

Copyright

2008 by Annie Leibovitz

All rights reserved

First

published in Great Britain in 2008 by Jonathan

ape,

Random House,

20 Vauxhall Bridge Road, London

SW1V 2SA

The Random House Group Limited Reg. No. 954009

www.randomhouse.co.uk

ISBN 9780224087575
Printed by Amilcare Pizzi, Milan

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