there’s a great 9 page article on annie leibovitz up on NYMAG right now, and reading it is utterly heartbreaking. i’ve always had a bit of a love/hate relationship with annie leibovitz, she seems like the kind of photographer who’s fame has been built on circumstance and luck, not skill. i find her early work remarkable only because of it’s subjects, and in the last decade, her unbelievably elaborate set ups make me think that it would be impossible NOT to take a good photograph in those circumstances.

still, what an amazing life! and to be able to have lofty celebrities let down their guards down long enough to take that one photo, it’s incredible. she seems like someone you would want to know – her relationship with susan sontag is so bizarre to me – the brilliant, cold essayist and the ultimate pop photographer, her bizarre spending habits, that crazy inability to keep her finances in order.

someone sent me a copy of her book annie leibovitz: at work earlier this year, and it’s a really fascinating read – detailed stories accompanying each photo. flying back from an overseas trip last year, there was a documentary playing on the virgin airlines channel documenting the process of her putting it together, it was pretty amazing to see how involved she got in every single detail. i do think it’s so sad, reading about her life, all these stories published and written as though she’s already dead. hm.

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