Photography offered a way out of the studio
Leibovitz began as a painting student at the San Francisco Art Institute. In her GQ interview about photography’s beginnings, she recalled finding painting isolating. A night photography class offered immediacy, a communal darkroom and people to discuss pictures with.
Her professional opening came before she had finished studying. As Icontent’s film about Leibovitz’s life and photographs recounts, she began as a Rolling Stone photojournalist in 1970, while still at the Art Institute.
Rolling Stone became an education
The magazine was still a small Bay Area paper. In the GQ interview, Leibovitz recalled classmates’ reservations about commercial photography; she saw an opportunity to develop its photographic identity.
Looking back in Leibovitz’s 2008 TIME interview, she said Rolling Stone shaped who she became and taught her early that her work mattered.
Bea Feitler opened another door
After the magazine’s 1977 move to New York, art director Bea Feitler became a mentor. Their work on the Vanity Fair prototype led to Leibovitz’s next move, widening her subjects beyond music.
Success also meant learning to work with a team
Leibovitz’s account of working with assistants complicates the familiar image of the solitary photographer. She told TIME that she initially became frustrated when colleagues could not see precisely what she saw. Learning to work with people took years.
She also described learning when to move on from a picture that was not working, and accepting responsibility for the result rather than blaming the subject.
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Books created room to look again
Magazine work was not the whole career. Icontent’s film was commissioned for the International Center of Photography’s 2009 Infinity Awards, where Leibovitz received a lifetime achievement award. The film presents four decades of photographs: a useful invitation to look beyond a single famous cover.
In the GQ interview, Leibovitz described books as a chance to reconsider magazine work. Her 2011 book Pilgrimage turned towards places, rooms and objects rather than portrait subjects.
By 2017, she was describing herself as an artist using a camera in her conversation with CBS This Morning. She spoke of different stages in her photography and the possibilities of digital work. Her enthusiasm for getting older came with a qualification: experience did not necessarily mean taking a better photograph, but it brought greater understanding of what she was doing.
That distinction leaves the career open. An established photographer can know the work more deeply without treating every new picture as an automatic improvement.
Frequently asked questions
When did Annie Leibovitz join Rolling Stone?
In 1970, while she was still a student at the San Francisco Art Institute.
Why did she move to Vanity Fair?
Working on its prototype with Bea Feitler opened that opportunity.
Did working with assistants come naturally?
No. She told TIME that learning to work with other people took years.
What did she say about photography and age?
She welcomed greater understanding, without claiming that age automatically produced better photographs.