Week 6

Annie Leibovitz - Life through a lens

She is a very enthusiastic lady, found it very hard to say no to a job and almost ran herself into the ground. She had three kids and was in such a demand.

http://dawnpeterson.wordpress.com/2010/02/12/copycat/

She was from a huge family with five other siblings, basically she was raised in a car. Her family would move around a lot because of her fathers career and to avoid having to pay for accommodation her parents would drive non-stop to the destination. Hence, her childhood was spent looking out the car window, essentially framing her world. 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/andrewbain/1806378291/

Her mother almost always had a camera and was forever snapping pictures of the family, it became as she says, 'apart of the family'. With such an upbringing it isn't hard to believe that she was drawn to the camera and documenting moments. 

Robert Frank - made photography portable.

After studying at San Francisco Art Institute, Leibovitz focused on her photography and followed her path to the Rolling Stones magazine. At the time the magazine was only just starting out and was quite amateur and experimental. They introduced art director s and writers into her work, another dimension she hadn't get experienced. The magazine was a blank canvas for everyone working on it, she was possibly one of the earliest female photographers, she engaged with her subject and people would open up to her. When the magazine were going to interview John Lennon she begged to go along too, and captured the story in a way words and interviews couldn't. 

After a while with the Rolling Stones Annie had forgotten that a good photograph would convey more than what was in the frame and when she got the chance to go to a riot and photograph she was awakened by Yoko Ono, as all she had was the figures lining up in a straight line, Ono told her that she had wasted a really good opportunity and failed to capture the reality of the moment and the emotions. This prompted Leibovitz to look further into her tasks and find the essence that made it talk to the viewer. 

The magazine allowed her to cover a variety of genres in music and expand her connections within the media industry. Even with the Nixon photographs  at the White House, she waited around and told the story with the images and moments in-between the big moments, 'the rolling up of the carpet' strongly representing his removal from power. The magazine and avenues she went down gave her an almost celebrity status. 

http://moviedearest.blogspot.com/2008/10/out-in-film-annie-leibovitz.html

Leibovitz understood that to get a good photograph she had to be almost a fly on the wall and capture the moments when people are at their most comfortable, she would spend days with bands and they would forget that she was taking pictures, her presence wasn't unusual and she would capture spectacular images. 'Capturing a heightened moment.' 

http://outsidetoinside.wordpress.com/2011/03/17/special-leibovitz-and-nachtwey-photographers-extroadinaire/

Leibovitz broke the boundaries of photography, creating a new layout with her 'Bett Maddler' image. It was for a cover and has something to do with roses, she had Bett ly on a bed of roses and took the aerial photograph. She was made famous for incorporating something intimate from the person into the image, named 'Story Portraits'. The stories were derived from very thoughts about ideas, her style and simplicity. People began to look forward to her photographs, this never happened for a photographer before Annie. 

She teamed  up with her sister Susan who was the work and brain of the duo, while Annie was the 'play' she developed the intuition in grabbing a certain moment and capturing it. 

The downfall to her work at the Rolling Stone was the drug culture it was situated in. She had to go to rehab which helped her grow up and focus. Vanity Fair offered her a job which she took up gladly. Leibovitz brought the 'white background' element to Rolling Stones, which was and is now a trademark they are recognised by. Vanity Fair showcased her 'story portraits', including Whoopy Goldberg immersing from a bath full of milk, everything changed for Goldberg and society. Her shoots were huge! They became more and more complicated and what ever she asked for they would provide her with, even circus animals or a brass band she would get them. She would always be obsessed with getting the shot right. 

http://brownstate.typepad.com/ken_burns_hates_mexicans/2007/07/los-bros-hernan.html

Photographers today are inspired and influenced by her past shots, like the image above although no connection to each other in content they share the same composition as each other. It was originally a powerful image (especially with the placement of subjects) further more because John Lennon's love life was very complicated and even further was his death several hours after this photo. The contemporary appropriation doesn't have the same impact in meaning but it is still a powerful image on it's own.

1. Photography - of a time - an historical document only recognised as such in the fullness of the time.

For example, the Rolling Stones magazine was very influential of the time, nowadays it isn't as known or read. Still holds a significance but not as it did for it's time. We understand it but can't relate.

2. Culture - counter culture; sub-culture; high culture; popular culture; ;;;;; visual manifestations and representations. 

Leibovitz's passion for photography created historical documents. 

Rosemary Laing - Bride series 

VS 

Annie Leibovitz's pictures

Bride Series Rosemary Laing - http://qag.qld.gov.au/collection/contemporary_australian_art/rosemary_laing

http://www.roosterflix.com/2008_11_01_archive.html

Differences between their works.

Works of Annie overlaps with Laing, both were staged but one is classified as art and the other commercial photography.

Visual Communication  - Images with Messages  - Paul Martin Lester

Chapter 12 - Photography

http://www.artmany.com/migrant-mother-1936-by-dorothea-lange.html

The "Migrant Mother" which is essentially a portrait of a family, Florence Thompson' family to be exact. It is the most reproduced photograph in the history of photography because it makes people care on a deep, personal level. 

Dorothea Lange had a reputation for capturing personalties, she was a passionate photographer who became very interested in the terrible living conditions of rural Americans' after many news reports. This prompted a job of Lange with the State California to document agricultural land conditions. After the project she was hired by Rexford Tugwell with the Resettlement Administration (RA), later renamed the Farm Security Administration (FSA), that helped relocate families to more fertile farmland. 

Roy Stryker (an economist professor) was hired by Tugwell to teach the photographers to sat as a historian, economist and anthropologist as they looked for images to capture on film. Stryker assembled one of the most accredited teams in the history of social documentation. Photojournalism was just beginning to be recognised.

"The FSA photographers produced an exhaustive document of rural and urban life in America during the 1930s and 1940s that has never been equaled." Most magazines used these images because they were free, they helped in passion the 'New Deal legislation' and furthermore inspired other photographers to follow in the documenting style. 

"But the image in the collection - the most revered and reproduced - is Lange's "Migrant Mother".

Lange was on her way home after a month-long project and was passing Camino Real highway when she saw a "Pea-Pickers Camp", very common at the time because of the poor situation of many people. She wasn't going to worry about it  but thought the opportunity was too rich to be missed. She drove back to the spot and spent about ten minutes taking several photographs. She found Florence and her seven children sitting at the opening of their tent, Lange did not ask for her name or anything about her past. She went to make several prints and the images were sent to the San Francisco News.

Lange wrote about it: "Camped on the edge of a pea field where the crop had failed in a freeze. The tires had just been sold from the car to buy food. She was thirty-two years old and had seven children. She said that she had been living on frozen vegetables from the surrounding fields and birds that the children had killed." 

Roy Stryker saw the "Migrant Mother" and all it's historical and social glory. Newspapers forever reproduced it and this made Lange famous. Although Florence (her name only learnt after she complained about the publishing of the image and had a news report on it) did not like the photograph, her life did not improve because of it's production. She was very bitter saying,"that's my picture hanging all over the world, and i can't get a penny out of it." Florence got no compensation for her life but Lange got famous.

http://mrjohnsonssclasses.wikispaces.com/The+Great+Depression

About forty-eight years after the photograph was taken Florence had a heart attack which the family members alerted to the local newspapers. Many people saw the story and remembered the impact her image had on them, they went to send her money, she received more than $15, 000 before she died. 

A photographs impact is determined by the interpretation of the viewer and what the photographer decides to show in the frame. A painting of "The Migrant Mother" would not have been the same as this photograph, it is a reminder now of how astounding photographs can be. Florence could have objected at the time the photograph was being taken but did not know how to handle such a situation and didn't realise the stress it would create in her life. She was vulnerable and exploited mainly because of her status and lack of power in society. 

The media also choose the image from a bunch, others revealed her sixteen year old daughter which the producer thought would make the audience less sympathetic towards her situation. Also the father was absent would that have lessened the impact? Lange choose to only show the woman with her young children, "the image is more poignant in implying that this is a woman who must face an uncertain future alone."

"A photograph is never really an objective representation of reality….understanding the symbols that are a part of a composition, as well as those that are purposely omitted, is necessary. In depth image analysis reveals the obvious and hidden elements that are part of a photograph. 

"….the image reveals a bone-weary numbness in which she is probably too polite or helpless to refuse the exposure….forever steereotypes Florence Thompson as a homeless matriarch.