About Annie Leibovitz: Anna-Lou "Annie" Leibovitz is an American portrait photographer.
A very subtle difference can make the picture or not.
I still need the camera because it is the only reason anyone is talking to me.
In a portrait, you have room to have a point of view and to be conceptual with a picture. The image may not be literally what's going on, but it's representative.
I went to Yosemite as an homage to Ansel Adams. I could never be Ansel Adams, but to know that's there for us - there's so much for us in this country.
I don't think there is anything wrong with white space. I don't think it's a problem to have a blank wall.
Coming tight was boring to me, just the face... it didn't have enough information.
When you go to take someone's picture, the first thing they say is, what you want me to do? Everyone is very awkward.
I've created a vocabulary of different styles. I draw from many different ways to take a picture. Sometimes I go back to reportage, to journalism.
When I take a picture I take 10 percent of what I see.
What I am interested in now is the landscape. Pictures without people. I wouldn't be surprised if eventually there are no people in my pictures. It is so emotional.
Lennon was very helpful. What he taught me seems completely obvious: he expected people to treat each other well.
If it makes you cry, it goes in the show.
I've learned to create a palette, a vocabulary of ways to take pictures.
When you are younger, the camera is like a friend and you can go places and feel like you're with someone, like you have a companion.
What I end up shooting is the situation. I shoot the composition and my subject is going to help the composition or not.
As I get older, the book projects are - liberating is one word, but they really are me.
When I started working for Rolling Stone, I became very interested in journalism and thought maybe that's what I was doing, but it wasn't.
I personally made a decision many years ago that I wanted to crawl into portraiture because it had a lot of latitude.
I feel very proud of the work from the '80s because it is very bright and colorful.
I admired the work of photographers like Beaton, Penn, and Avedon as much as I respected the grittier photographers such as Robert Frank. But in the same way that I had to find my own way of reportage, I had to find my own form of glamour.
Those who want to be serious photographers, you're really going to have to edit your work. You're going to have to understand what you're doing. You're going to have to not just shoot, shoot, shoot. To stop and look at your work is the most important...
