Call it Education

Annie Leibovitz has learned to see the forest for the trees.

by Natalie Hope McDonald

After years spent cementing her reputation as a photography all-star, all Annie Leibovitz ever wanted was to be a teacher. This may explain why her latest book, Annie Leibovitz at Work (Random House, Nov. 18), branches out from the glossy-coffee-table-collectible genre and takes a textbook approach: It's a behind-the-scenes look at her oeuvre, her inspiration and her relationship with subjects ranging from the Queen of England, to Barack Obama, to her mother.

THE NITTY GRITTY: Annie Leibovitz at Work takes a different route than its shiny coffee-table counterparts, digging deep and dropping knowledge.

"It's very different," admits Leibovitz on the phone from a car in Miami, a week before tonight's Free Library of Philadelphia book signing. "It has a lot more words!" she laughs. But a more serious Leibovitz says she's always wanted to do a book like this one. "As I sat down to talk about the photos, I had much more to say," she says. "The book became broader and bigger."

The book starts with a selection of early images of Leibovitz's own family (subjects who taught the young documentarian how to truly see a composition), then delves into her years as a photographer for Rolling Stone, shedding light on her photographic inspirations. Each chapter pinpoints hallmarks in Leibovitz's career — like Nixon's resignation — and portraits that made her famous — including the famous nude of John and Yoko. Leibovitz spends a lot of time talking about concepts of nudity in art, Hollywood and the war, intellectually dancing between subjects with humor and insight.

When asked whether it can be more difficult to photograph subjects who hold personal significance (like her partner, writer Susan Sontag, who died of cancer in 2004) compared to celebrities being primped by stylists and lit by technicians, Leibovitz makes a distinction. "Since I started taking pictures, the kind of style was personal reportage," she explains. "You shot when you woke up and when you slept. That's really the style I know. That's really who I am." Only later did she learn the art of studio photography, which represents only a small portion of her diverse portfolio. Her hope as an artist is that one style doesn't cancel out the other or make either approach any less legitimate.

"People have this whole idea that this job is glamorous," she says. "But it's work. I sometimes feel like I'm a conceptual artist using photography."

In a way, Annie Leibovitz at Work comes full-circle, offering not only snapshots of her professional process, but also offering a tongue-in-cheek epilogue of "Ten Most Asked Questions" (a certain warning to overzealous journalists, for sure), as well as the lowdown on everything from what cameras she's used over the years to her thoughts on the digital revolution.

"I really love composition and form," Leibovitz says, admitting that sometimes she feels less like a photographer who caught the moment and more like one who caught it a few seconds late. "You have to enjoy solving problems to be a photographer," she says. And even then, all the planning in the world isn't a guarantee. Sometimes the best shots are still captured when you least expect it.

Leibovitz says she had no intention of taking a picture the day she visited architect Philip Johnson's Glass House in New Canaan, Conn. "I was thinking I would look at the house because I love architecture," she says. But before she knew it, Johnson was standing there, effortlessly looking out from his crystalline home. She instinctively snapped the photo, which has become one of the most famous images of the architect, who died in 2005. "I love to stumble across something," she says, sounding more like an eager student than a household name.

But does someone who's spent a lifetime photographing the famous lose a little of the passion that inspired her to pick up her first 55 mm Minolta? Absolutely not, she says as she describes the open-road view of the Florida highway as seen from the car in which she's riding. "You don't stop seeing the picture."

(n_mcdonald@citypaper.net)

Reading/signing, Thu., Dec. 4, 7:30 p.m., $6 (simulcast), Free Library, Central Branch, 1901 Vine St., 215-567-4341, freelibrary.org.