The artist that I am presenting is Annie Leibovitz. Annie is a very well respected and accomplished photographer. She has garnered this acclaim due to the intimacy that is portrayed in many of her photographs. Having worked for “Rolling Stone” magazine during its infancy, she is said to be responsible for giving the magazine its signature, up-close and personal feel with its subjects. After her stint with Rolling Stone she has gone on to work with Vogue and Vanity Fair magazines on numerous successful and highly publicized projects.
There is a quality about her portraits that makes you feel like only you and the person or persons being photographed exist at that moment in time. Her portrait of John Lennon and Yoko Ono conveys the message that most people in the country were feeling at that time. Yoko was seen and the person who broke up “The Beatles” and an icy figure in John’s life. Her perceived coldness, immobile stiffness and dark dress are an extreme contrast to John’s flexibility, warmth and stark nudeness. The picture shows him practically hanging off of her while she seems to lie there unflinchingly with her gazed fixed on some distant point. Metaphorically, it reminds me of how within a relationship one party is willing go out of their way and bend to the will of the other while the second party doesn’t even seem to notice.
Her portraits of Barack Obama and William Burroughs depict intense gazes and other-worldly stares that are conjured up from her subjects and mesmerize their audiences. Barack’s intense fixed look evokes a feeling of quiet confidence, while William Burroughs seems to almost look through you.
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