Annie Leibovitz

The fourth photographer that I will be writing about is Annie Leibovitz. Leibovitz rose to fame when she began work for the Rolling Stones magazine, and has been said to have been inspired by fellow famous photographers Robert Frank and Henri Cartier-Bresson. She mainly takes portrait photographs of well known people, such as singers, actors and models. I have taken a liking to these photographs because they are unlike any other style I have seen before and they allow the viewer of the photograph to explore the emotions the celebrity may be feeling, which I feel rarely happens for a lot of people. An example of a formal element that is found within her work is tone, which can be seen in this photograph:

The formal element of tone is used to show the vibrancy or paleness of a colour without directly showing the actual colour, and in my opinion, she has achieved this objective. Leibovitz's photographs of celebrities became very popular during her time taking photographs for Vanity Fair magazine. It is clear that she tries to include more than one formal element in her portraits, for example, in this photograph she has used both reflection and form: 

Reflection is used simply to show the mirroring of an object or a person, or a copy of it/them, whereas form is used to show the dimensions of an object or person. In the above photograph, Leibovitz has used celebrities to allow these formal elements to become evident. Colour is also used here, looking at the walls and the props scattered across the room that have been used to contrast each other. As contrast is another formal element, I found the way in which Leibovitz has portrayed it in this photograph very nice:

The contrast used in this photograph is the difference between young and old, which is shown with the wrinkles in skin, and the colour of the hair.  I find Annie Leibovitz's work particularliy inspiring due to the fact that she has tried to put more than one formal element in each of her pictures. This has influenced me to try and look for more than one formal element, or even create some formal elements around a natural formal element. For example, the photograph below includes colour, reflection and lines. 

Annie Leibovitz inspires me due to her differences in the photographs she takes. Each of her photographs take place in a different environment, yet still contain people. From this I have learned that the background of a photograph is very much important, just as important as the facial expressions and body positioning of the people that feature in it. Also, Leibovitz uses a wide variety of formal elements, which has inspired me to look for various formal elements, particularly in my location shoots, but also in my studio shoots. An example of when I have managed to use the background of a photograph is from my back of heads location shoot. There are similarities in both of these photographs in terms of how the background has been used as well as the person, instead of just focusing on the person. You can see the field and even other people in the background of this photograph, much like you can see details in the back of Leibotvitz's photographs. 

To summarise, many people would assume that the photographs that Annie Leibovitz takes are simply portraits of famous people, however, I would disagree and say that her photographs explore the many formal elements used in photography, and her way of taking them allows us to see the emotions felt by the people having their photograph taken, which doesn't always work as well as it has with Leibovitz. I very much like her photographs for all of these reasons, and might base some of my portraiture work on some of the photographs she has taken before.