Annie Leibovitz has always been an inspiration to me, although not for the most obvious reasons. She is known largely as a stereotypical big name accomplished photographer, having shot everything from the Rolling Stones, John Lennon, Demi Moore, Whoopi Goldberg or Sylvester Stallone, Tom Selleck, Luciano Pavarotti and Caitlyn Jenner.
Her portfolio is a long and subjects include some of the most influential people of our era, but I’m more impressed with her ability to connect with ordinary people and to see them for the best they have to offer. I’m also impressed by her ability to elicit personal and occasionally intimate details from largely inanimate objects owned by people who have shaped America.
The later is the subject of her book Pilgrimage, a series of self-imposed personal assignments that meant something to her personally. She wasn’t paid to make these pictures, they simply carried some personal meaning to her, a view that comes across even through an inanimate object.
The introduction was written by historian Doris Kearns Goodwin and the text of the book was a collaboration between Annie Leibovitz and writer Sharon DeLano, famous enough in her own field. The images from the book include farmhouses in Gettysburg, PA, a television set owned by Elvis Presley, Thomas Jefferson’s garden in Monticello, boots owned by Annie Oakley, the desk and other personal objects of Louisa May Alcott where she wrote Little Women. Another image shows the buttons and embroidery of Emily Dickinson’s dress.
One dreary landscapes depicts the wintery region of Darke County, Ohio where Oakley was born. The next shows the trunk that contained her belongings as she traveled on the road. Independently, the images have a bleak feel to them. Another image depicts the bedroom window of Ralph Waldo Emmerson, which shows fall foliage of trees in the nearby yard. It is framed through the panes of a window, which gives the photograph a dreamlike quality to it. Natural lighting coming through a backlit window leaves a lonely feeling.
One of my favorite quotes from the books sums things up well: “Some of these places were entirely arbitrary. Some had always meant something to her. Others she stumbled into by happenstance. All had an impact on her.” Maybe that’s the lesson for all photographers: pursue the subjects that have the deepest impact on you.