Perhaps one of the most talented and well-recognized photographers of this century is Annie Leibovitz.
Her style is unmistakable and her pictures are works of art.
She is living proof that photographers are artists, with a great example of this being her 1980 photograph of John Lennon and Yoko Ono.
Anna-Lou Liebovitz was born on October 2nd, 1949 in Waterbury, Connecticut but as the daughter of an Air Force Lieutenant Colonel her family would move around a lot due to his being transferred to new duty stations.
Annie enrolled in the San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) in the fall of 1967 and choose painting as her major but this would quickly change after her freshman year when she would visit her family, which had relocated to Clark Air Base in the Philippines.
This base was used as a main support station for soldiers arriving and leaving Vietnam and her visit to it would mark the beginning of her interest in photography when her family would take a trip to Japan.
This trip included a visit to Mount Fuji which she would climb armed with her newly purchased Minolta SR-T101 camera.
The usual way to climb Mt.
Fuji is to make your way up until you reach Way Station #8 and then rest there overnight and then finish the climb the next morning reaching the summit just as the sun rises.
This was where Annie snapped some of her first pictures as a photographer but to her dismay she didn't plan ahead for this moment and only had one roll of film and it only had a few exposures left on it but this was a lesson learned and as she puts it "if I was going to live with this thing I was going to have to think about what that meant, there weren't going to be any pictures without it.
" She returned to the SFAI and enrolled in a night class in photography and the following summer she would take a photography workshop.
Between the two she learned how to compose, frame and fill the negative to make everything fit within the cameras rectangle.
She was taught that it wasn't about the equipment or technique and that the most important thing a photographer has to learn is "to see".
In the fall of 1969, with the Vietnam War (1955-1975) at its peak, Annie packed up her bags and her Minolta and headed off to Israel where she would work on a Kibbutz, a collective community traditionally based on agriculture, and study Hebrew.
Meanwhile back in the U.
S.
the demonstrations against the war had increased with more and more young people putting down their textbooks and picking up protest signs to show their opposition to the war.
Annie's feelings towards the war were divided and like many people her age she didn't believe in or understand it but then their was her father who was going in and out of Vietnam on a regular basis as a part of the U.
S military.
So in early 1970 she decided to return to the SFAI and resume her studies and develop the rolls of film she had taken in Israel but in the spring of that year a tragic event would take place that would have a profound impact on her life and her decision to become a photographer.
The U.
S.
involvement in Vietnam would take on a whole new meaning when on April 30th, 1970 President Nixon announced that the U.
S military had invaded Cambodia.
This set off a tidal wave of protests on college campuses across the country with Kent State University in Kent, Ohio taking center stage.
The announcement by President Nixon was perceived by students as a way of prolonging the war with the real possibility of more and more of them being drafted.
Riots broke out on the streets of Kent along with vandalism and looting.
In fear of not being able to control the situation local authorities asked the Governor to deploy the Ohio National Guard.
Meanwhile back on campus students were on strike, sit-ins and anti-war rallys were taking place the ROTC building had been set ablaze and students were burning their draft cards.
This tense and delicate situation would finally come to a head on May 4th.
Students had planned a rally to take place on campus that day at 12 noon on the University's Commons near Taylor Hall.
Some 2, 000 demonstrators and curious onlookers showed up and the National Guard was ordered to disperse the crowd, which at first came as a verbal warning from campus patrolman Harold Rice to either disperse or face arrest.
The demonstrators replied with a volley of rocks thrown in the direction of the officer ultimately striking another patrolman.
Tear gas was then used but due to unfavorable wind conditions it had little effect on the demonstrators, some even lobbed the canisters back at the soldiers.
It was now clear that the demonstrators were not going anywhere so the decision was made for the soldiers to advance towards them.
With their bayonets in place on the end of their rifles the soldiers moved in and as they did hundreds of the demonstrators began to scatter in different directions but this was the students home field they knew where to go, the guard didn't as they would wind up on the athletic practice field.
The soldiers now found themselves surrounded by the fields chain link fence as well as pockets of demonstrators gathered at various locations outside the fence.
With no other visible exits in sight the soldiers were forced to leave the field the way that they had entered.
As they did, and headed back towards the Commons, one of the guardsmen a Sgt Taylor opened fire on the demonstrators with his.
45 caliber side arm, this started a chain reaction as other guardsmen began firing into the crowd with their M-1 Garand rifles.
This one-sided gun battle lasted only 13 seconds but once the dust had settled and the rifles had gone silent 4 students would lay mortally wounded with 9 others injured, one of those would suffer permanent paralysis.
In all 67 shots were fired which comes out to a little over 5 rounds per second with 29 guardsmen admitting to firing their weapons.
It is still to this day unclear why such deadly force was used as no shots were ever heard coming from the direction of the demonstrators but The United States Court Of Appeals For The Sixth Circuit, in a subsequent wrongful death lawsuit, made it very clear when they ruled that the authorities did have the right to disperse the crowd.
The problem that I have with this ruling is that it's very vague, yes they had the right to disperse the crowd but by what means and to what extent? These senseless killings would have a sobering effect on our country and make an impact on Annie who had taken photographs of antiwar protests in San Francisco and Berkley, she would take those photos along with some she had taken while in Israel to the art director of Rolling Stone magazine.
One of those photos, of a demonstration at City Hall, would make the cover of the June 11th special issue covering campus riots and protests.
This would mark the beginning of her career as a photographer and also a defining moment in her life, for as she put it "seeing that image on the newsstand is a moment that will stay with me forever.
" In the fall of 1970 she began her senior year at SFAI while still working at Rolling Stone, it was around this time that she traded in her Minolta for a Nikon which had become the camera of choice for professional photographers.
She would carry three cameras on her assignments all with different lenses, one had a 35mm lens another a 55mm lens and the last one a 105mm lens this one also had a meter for taking light readings.
She used this type of setup to save time not having to change lenses she could have opted for a zoom lens but at that time zoom lenses just weren't made that well "When you saw a photographer with a zoom lens on his camera you didn't take him seriously.
" In December of that year she flew to New York to photograph John Lennon who was being interviewed by the editor of Rolling Stone Jann Wenner.
That photo would appear on the cover of the January 21st, 1971 edition of the magazine, this would also be the year that she received her Bachelors Degree Of Fine Arts from SFAI.
Between 1972 and 1974 she would cover the reelection of Richard Nixon as president, with fellow Rolling Stone photographer Hunter S Thompson, and also Nixon's resignation with Mary Ellen Clark and be listed as "chief photographer" on the masthead of the May 10, 1973 issue of the magazine.
In 1975 she received a phone call from Mick Jagger asking her if she would like to be the photographer for their upcoming tour of the U.
S.
, which was appropriately named "Tour Of The Americas.
" This would be a separate project away from the magazine so there was no guarantee of her job still being there once the tour was over, knowing this she accepted Mick's offer.
The tour officially began on June 3rd, 1975 at the Hemisfair Arena in San Antonio, TX and concluded August 8th at Rich Stadium in Buffalo, New York.
A total of 46 shows were played and the tour marked the debut of new guitarists Ronnie Wood.
The tour would be more that just photographing a rock and roll supergroup it would also be a learning experience.
She discovered that she didn't have much control over the lighting when photographing the band on stage and that she was at the mercy of the lighting techs who according to her "were usually on drugs.
" She saw how some of the guitar licks she heard while the band were in their hotel rooms would later become parts of songs on their next album and the power that a band like the Stones has, a power that can whip a crowd into a frenzy to the point where they lose a sense of who they are.
Out of all the bands Annie has photographed throughout her career the Rolling Stones 1975 tour is her favorite "It was the first time in my life that something took me over.
" In 1980 Annie would have the opportunity to photograph John Lennon again and sadly it would be the last time that he would ever be photographed.
Johnathan Cott had just done a recent interview with John and Annie would follow it up by shooting the pictures.
The magazine only wanted John on the cover but he insisted that Yoko be included according to him "It was really important.
" The inspiration for the picture came from the cover of John and Yoko's 1980 album Double Fantasy in which they two shared a kiss.
Annie's idea was to have them lying naked in bed embracing each other, they had both posed nude in the past, but this time for some reason Yoko didn't want to.
So Yoko remained clothed and John was naked, the end result was a very striking photograph! Yoko dressed in blue jeans and a black shirt lying on her back with her arms stretched out over her head and John curled up next to her in somewhat of a fetal position.
The serene look she has as John frames her face with his left arm and kisses her cheek.
Like many people this is my favorite picture from Annie, it speaks to you.
John would not live to see the picture when it was finally published because just hours after it was taken Mark David Chapman gunned down Lennon outside his apartment.
He was rushed to Roosevelt Hospital where he was pronounced DOA.
Chapman was tried and convicted and to this day still remains in state custody.
In 1983 Annie resigned from Rolling Stone to become the first contributing photographer at Vanity Fair but her time at the magazine will be with us forever.
She doesn't just "take" pictures she creates them through her keen sense of being able to get the most from what she has to work with whether it's her subject, the scenery or the lighting she knows how to put it all together to create pictures that others don't see and this is what sets her apart from the rest of the pack.
Annie has always marched to the beat of her own drummer and probably always will, she is a strong independent woman who knows what she wants and goes out and gets it.
If you ever have a chance to go to one of her exhibits, do, you won't be disappointed and you may even have the honor of meeting her.