Annie Leibovitz is the star who photographs the stars. Yet she doesn’t come out from behind her lens happily, CAROLINE PHILLIPS discovers.
ANNIE Leibovitz has fixed the look of American popular culture for two decades. She is reputed to earn £1million a year. Annie finds it hard to talk, struggles with her work, worries she’s lost her touch and nearly cried when she walked into her exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery. Annie, 44, has shot heavily pregnant Demi Moore, Whoopi Goldberg in a bath of milk, John Cleese hanging upside down in a tree pretending to be a bat and Joan Collins, who pushed her cleavage up with gaffer tape. For magazines from Rolling Stone to Vanity Fair, she’s spent the past two decades on the road with Mick Jagger, at the White House for Richard Nixon’s departure and with John Lennon, pictured curled foetally round Yoko, hours before he was murdered. Recently, she left Sarajevo to shoot Sylvester Stallone in Los Angeles.
Annie Leibovitz is the star who photographs the stars. Yet she doesn’t come out from behind her lens happily, CAROLINE PHILLIPS discovers.
ANNIE Leibovitz has fixed the look of American popular culture for two decades. She is reputed to earn £1million a year. Annie finds it hard to talk, struggles with her work, worries she’s lost her touch and nearly cried when she walked into her exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery. Annie, 44, has shot heavily pregnant Demi Moore, Whoopi Goldberg in a bath of milk, John Cleese hanging upside down in a tree pretending to be a bat and Joan Collins, who pushed her cleavage up with gaffer tape. For magazines from Rolling Stone to Vanity Fair, she’s spent the past two decades on the road with Mick Jagger, at the White House for Richard Nixon’s departure and with John Lennon, pictured curled foetally round Yoko, hours before he was murdered. Recently, she left Sarajevo to shoot Sylvester Stallone in Los Angeles.
She’s tall and imposing, dressed all in black, with manly looks and long, highlighted hair. Observing is her life – being observed is uncomfortable, talking about her work is difficult and talking about herself is even worse. ‘Talking is relatively new to me. I only started last year,’ she laughs, holding herself protectively and avoiding eye contact. ‘Working with people was a problem, too. It was making me angry. I didn’t like explaining. I don’t think I’m articulate.’
She keeps on the sidelines in her personal life as well. ‘It’s a battle to stay involved. I like to be there, but I don’t like to participate.’ She never married or had children. ‘It’s just something that slipped by. I didn’t notice if people were attracted to me or not. It’s not something I know how to deal with. Anyway, it’s not over completely yet.’ She adds that she has lots of supportive friends, an extended family and a full life. Has she ever lived with anyone? ‘No. Well, maybe my first boyfriend for a few minutes. Even if I met somebody I wanted to be with, I think we’d live in separate houses, perhaps with a bridge.’
When was the last time she had a relationship? ‘I’m not answering these questions,’ she says, spikily. Is she self-sufficient and scared of intimacy? ‘Next question.’ Her best friend is Susan Sontag, who encouraged her professionally when she didn’t feel strong five years ago. Annie joked once about buying children. ‘That was definitely a joke,’ she says. ‘But I might adopt eventually. I’ll have to decide in the next few years. I love Chinese babies, Oriental babies, their eyes are so beautiful.” One of six children, she was the daughter of an air force colonel. She developed a drive, which, like her drug-taking during the Stones era, seems obsessive.
‘After my childhood, it’s funny you call it my ‘drive’,’ she laughs. ‘Because I was raised in a car. At least, that’s what it felt like. We travelled all over. I thought changing your environment and keeping on the move could solve all your problems.’
When she first worked, she says she ‘didn’t know who I was’. Her push and itinerant lifestyle kept such feelings at bay. ‘Keeping moving is necessary for me. I find it hard to stay still. I’m just starting to slow down.’ Her success has been hard earned. ‘I worked in a vacuum for many years, not noticing that people were noticing me. I was scared of not working. It’s been a sacrifice.’ She is spirited and strong, but she suffers from lack of confidence.
‘Sure, all the time. If I hadn’t taken a good picture, I used to be miserable until I did. And I used to make the people around me miserable, too. It doesn’t get any easier. I’m only just learning to enjoy it.’ SHE talks me round her exhibition, past witty and imaginative Vanity Fair pictures, on to new directions. There are striking images of HIV-positive women who use body paint as therapy. ‘That’s what those women feel like when they walk down the street. As if their insides are painted on their outsides.’
Landscapes of Monument Valley. ‘Often when I take location photographs, I regret having to put the person in the picture later.’ And images of Sarajevo where she went on her own, twice, for 11 days. ‘Unlike Lebanon, you can’t leave the front and drive away. Sure I was scared, but it’s like being in a bowl, you have a false sense of security.”
She won’t talk about the millions her photographs reputedly bring her. Because people might envy her? ‘Money isn’t important. The money I make pays for the overheads.’ So she’s not rich? ‘I’m not. Believe me, it surprises me.’
But she will talk about her fame. ‘I found it unsettling walking the streets of Washington doing the presidential inauguration and being recognised.’ The corollary is that she gets work (like photographing the Olympic hopefuls) because she’s well known.
‘I’d be stupid to say I wasn’t totally enjoying this, the National Portrait Gallery. I’m so surprised, I came to the door and felt like crying. But I think their recognition has come a little early. I know this sounds corny, but I feel like I’m just starting. The best work is ahead.’ It’ll be worth the drive…
