Life seen through the lens. Annie Leibovitz - documentary and behind the scenes
MOSCOW, October 11 – RIA Novosti, Inna Finochka, Natalia Grigorieva:
The exhibition of American photographer Annie Leibovitz, which opens at the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow, has increased by a third compared to the exhibition presented in June at the Hermitage, adding photographs that have not been exhibited anywhere before, exhibition producer Alexandra Anisimova told RIA Novosti.
The exhibition “Annie Leibovitz. Life of a photographer. 1990-2005″ presents part of the creative biography of the photographer, who has been making photo reports and unique portraits for the American magazines Vanity Fair and Rolling Stone for more than a quarter of a century.
“Especially for Moscow, Leibovitz added 11 new photographs to the exhibition, which had not previously been exhibited anywhere in the world,” Anisimova said.
Now, according to her, the photographer is working on a “Russian” project.
“There is an idea to work further in this direction, although it has not yet been documented. But it is obvious that she is very interested in this. Annie has already photographed both Gorbachev and Baryshnikov. Main question– who will be next,” said the producer.
The exhibition features portraits of American celebrities such as William Burroughs, Mick Jagger, Patti Smith, Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Scarlett Johansson, Nicole Kidman, Johnny Depp, Kate Moss, Brad Pitt, Jim Carrey. However, the key place among all these portraits is given to two people close to Leibniz, who both recently died - her father and her close friend, the writer Susan Sontag. Their photographs were first published in 2006 in a separate album.
“When I started working on selecting photographs, my close friend died, my father died, and my children were born. All this time I continued to take pictures, but it was then that I realized that personal photographs were of great importance to me. We all go through some moments in life, love and die. Every moment is an important story worth telling,” Leibovitz told RIA Novosti.
The biggest challenge, she said, was making the decision to publish these images.
“I thought for a long time, collected different opinions on this matter. It was a difficult choice, but in the end I decided to publish these photographs,” said the agency’s interlocutor.
According to her, it was the photographs of these two people that combined the remaining portraits into a separate exhibition.
Leibovitz remains one of the most sought-after photographers in the world. However, despite the fact that I constantly expect provocative photo shoots from her, she notes that now the conceptuality in her photographs is inferior to simplicity.
“I’m really happy now that at Vanity Fair I have the opportunity to do such simple portraits, where the model does not need to change a mountain of clothes for a photograph, does not need heavy makeup and special hairstyles,” she said.
According to her, if you do some work for a very long time, you begin to notice how your attitude towards work changes.
“At first I shot very conceptual photographs, more like short films, like the photographs of Whoopi Goldberg in a milk bath. Then I wanted to say, do something more real, or something real. But at some point this also gets boring, and you say to yourself: stop being so believable! We need more madness! When you're a photographer, you can go to all these extremes,” Leibovitz said.
DVDRip made from English DVD5 with the addition of Russian audio track.
Click to close spoiler: Did you know?
It is not surprising that we think less and less about how a particular photograph is created and what the work of a photojournalist or fashion photographer is. Photography today is everywhere: on advertising banners, on the Internet, on the phone, in museums. She is part of our reality. Arriva has selected the best films about photography that allow you to look behind the scenes of this art: see the everyday life of outstanding war correspondents, glossy photographers, conceptual photographers, and see how the geniuses of their craft take industrial landscapes and portraits.
"Testprints" (Contacts), 1989–2004
It is difficult to imagine a film that would penetrate so completely and deeply into the “kitchen” (and at the same time the head) of the best photographers in the world. “Test Prints” is a series consisting of three films: “The Best Traditions of Photojournalism”, “Renaissance modern photography" and "Conceptual photography". All of them are united by a leitmotif: photographers (including Nan Goldin, Robert Capa, Martin Parr, Lewis Baltz, Henri Cartier-Bresson and a dozen other greats) examine their “contact sheets” - printed in miniature frames from film, among which they choose the best one.
While dozens of photographs of the same subject flash on the screen, the photographer’s voice-over explains why he chose this or that photograph, which later became great. Did he pay more attention to composition, color, angle, or did he trust his own intuition and look for the mood of the frame? “Control prints” are more than 30 different photographers, more than 30 unique, personal worlds of photography. This series will be of interest not only to photographers, but also to art lovers; besides, each mini-film lasts only 10–15 minutes, so immersing yourself in photography will definitely not be tiresome.
Annie Leibovitz. life through a lens, 2006
In this film, an American icon portrait photography, admitted that since childhood she saw the world as if through a camera lens. Her father served in the army, and the family moved often, spending long hours in the car, so home country the children saw through the car window. This film tells about the creative career of an American: about the first photographs in Rolling Stone and a tour with the most famous musicians of the 1980s (of course, there were “drug problems”), about a trip to Sarajevo and subsequent magazine work in Vanity Fair and with Hollywood stars.
All those who are talking about Leibovitz different time found himself in front of her camera lens: Whoopi Goldberg, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Mick Jagger, Patti Smith, Yoko Ono and many others. “I have always been more interested in what a person does, rather than who he is. And I hope that my work reflects that,” in the film, a quiet, work-focused Annie Leibovitz reveals her views on portrait photography.
"War Photographer", 2001
This powerful and honest documentary by Christian Frey about war photographer James Nachtwey is perhaps the best film yet about the human horrors and professional dilemmas faced by photographers photographing in hot spots and troubled regions like South Africa. Legendary war reporter Robert Capa said, “If your photographs aren’t convincing enough, you weren’t close enough.” The film "War Photographer" tries to answer the question: "How close should one get to a tragedy and the people who experience it for the sake of convincing photographs?"
Funerals, dangerous shootouts, the family of a disabled person in Africa, suffocating workers at a quarry - in the film the viewer, like James Nachtwey, sees naked tragedies at arm's length. A mini-camera was attached to the photographer's camera, which recorded the sound of the shutter being released and allowed him to create the effect of presence. “For me, the power of photography is its ability to evoke human feelings. If war kills human qualities, then photography could have been born as something opposite to war. As an essential component of the antidote to war. When someone takes the risk of going into the middle of a war to show other countries what is happening there, then he is trying to negotiate peace,” Nachtwey says in the film.
“Industrial Landscapes”, 2006
The film is dedicated to Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky, who became famous for his photographs of industrial landscapes. Mines, quarries, factories, waste - he films everything that the world prefers to turn a blind eye to. “Industrial Landscapes” was filmed during Burtynsky’s travels in China and Bangladesh and also contains interviews with the photographer and filming largest factories. The photographer admits that he was influenced by the works of Ansel Adams and Edward Weston: the former photographed virgin landscapes, the latter - landscapes modified by man. Edward Burtynsky himself is already a living classic: his works are in more than fifty museum collections, including the Museum contemporary art and the Guggenheim Museum in New York.
This film is not only an introduction to fantastic landscapes, but also a conversation about ecology, to which they dedicate their projects. “Material recycling stations, mine waste, quarries and oil refineries are all places outside of our everyday experience, yet we use their product every day,” says Burtynsky.
“Blood ties. The Photography and Life of Sally Mann" (What Remains: The Life and Work of Sally Mann), 1994
The American Sally Mann, who entered the world of photography in 1992 with a complex intimate series, was condemned by some critics and viewers for pornography and what they thought were excessively frank photographs. The film “Blood Ties” shows the inner life and attitude of the photographer, for whom the nudity of her own children and relatives in the photographs was never something unnatural, shameful or provocative. Sally Mann's children - Emmett, Jesse and Virginia - remember how their childhood passed, which their mother constantly filmed. Sally herself, in turn, says that her research own family is an attempt to study memory and human nature.
“I am drawn to the strength and confidence that can be seen in their looks; there is nothing more attractive than a random natural gift. They real people, their lives are full and complex. The fading perspective of the past, the unpredictability of the future - these complexities created by time sway across their faces like the shadows of the foliage of a large oak tree,” says Sally Mann. The film also tells how a woman worked on photographs of nature in the American South, a project about her own husband and dog.
"Capa in Love and War", 2003
Famous American photographer. Specializes in celebrity portraits. Today she is the most sought after among female photographers.
The Golden Rules of Annie Leibovitz
Don't be satisfied with what you have in front of the camera. Raise the meaning of the plot and bring the idea to the end so that your inner critic cannot find fault with anything.
Take off yours. You will be the best in what you understand, in an environment where you know the rules. The best place- where you live.
Film what happens between the main events.
Review your archives: awareness of the event in the frame comes after a long time. With new experiences a new past opens up. And the present also changes.
Learn to build a full frame, remove all unnecessary things. In this sense, the black Polaroid frame on test shots is ideal for me.
Look for a way to combine an order and a personal photo. Personal awareness will help you do your work better.
Determine why people like your photos. Even if there are only five of these pictures out of 50, why do you like them?
Documentary about Annie Leibovitz: Life through the camera lens
Legendary photographer Annie Leibovitz spent her entire life observing other people's lives, capturing their moments with her camera. Working for Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair and Vogue, Annie Leibovitz has photographed iconic figures of the last thirty years. She photographed the rich and famous, the powerful and influential, the extraordinary and the famous.
Her camera is not afraid of the horrors of war: most recently it was Sarajevo and Rwanda. At the same time, she herself hid from prying eyes all her life; but three years ago she was “overtaken” by her younger sister’s movie camera.
Producer and director Barbara Leibovitz, a famous documentarian, watches her legendary sister, dividing her life into successes and failures, an idyll Everyday life on the farm and the creative “madness” of the studio.
In addition, the film contains many interviews dedicated to Annie - Mikhail Baryshnikov, Tina Brown, Graydon Carter, Roseanne Cash, Hillary Clinton, Whoopi Goldberg, Mick Jagger, Bette Midler, Demi Moore, Mark Morris, Yoko Ono, Keith Richards, will talk about her. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Patti Smith, Gloria Steinem, Anna Wintour.
Backstage (working moments from filming)
Shooting by Connie Dufgran, one of the founders of the Profoto brand, on the 40th anniversary of the Profoto brand.
