Annie Leibovitz Quotes & Sayings

I realized I couldn't be a journalist because I like to take a side, to have an opinion and a point a view; I liked to step across the imaginary boundary of the objective view that the journalist is supposed to have and be involved. — Annie Leibovitz

The pictures of my family were designed to be on a family wall, they were supposed to be together. It was supposed to copy my mother's wall in her house. — Annie Leibovitz

I'd like to think that the actions we take today will allow others in the future to discover the wonders of landscapes we helped protect but never had the chance to enjoy ourselves. — Annie Leibovitz

I've said about a million times that the best thing a young photographer can do is to stay close to home. Start with your friends and family, the people who will put up with you. Discover what it means to be close to your work, to be intimate with a subject. Measure the difference between that and working with someone you don't know as much about. Of course there are many good photographs that have nothing to do with staying close to home, and I guess what I'm really saying is that you should take pictures of something that has meaning for you — Annie Leibovitz

As much as I'm not a journalist, I use journalism. And when you photograph a relationship, it's quite wonderful to let something unfold in front of you. — Annie Leibovitz

I fell in love with the darkroom, and that was part of being a photographer at the time. The darkroom was unbelievably sexy. I would spend all night in the darkroom. — Annie Leibovitz

In this day and age of things moving so, so fast, we still long for things to stop, and we as a society love the still image. Every time there is some terrible or great moment, we remember the stills. — Annie Leibovitz

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. — Annie Leibovitz

When you go to take someone's picture, the first thing they say is, what you want me to do? Everyone is very awkward. — Annie Leibovitz

I am impressed with what happens when someone stays in the same place and you took the same picture over and over and it would be different, every single frame. — Annie Leibovitz

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. — Annie Leibovitz

Photography's like this baby that needs to be fed all the time. It's always hungry. — Annie Leibovitz

Lennon was very helpful. What he taught me seems completely obvious: he expected people to treat each other well. — Annie Leibovitz

When you are on assignment, film is the least expensive thing in a very practical sense. Your time, the person's time, turns out to be the most valuable thing. — Annie Leibovitz

Things happen in front of you. That's perhaps the most wonderful and mysterious aspect of photography. — Annie Leibovitz

At my Rolling Stones' tour, the camera was a protection. I used it in a Zen way. — Annie Leibovitz

If I didn't have my camera to remind me constantly, I am here to do this, I would eventually have slipped away, I think. I would have forgotten my reason to exist. — Annie Leibovitz

When I started to be published I thought about Margaret Bourke-White and the whole journalistic approach to things. I believed I was supposed to catch life going by me - that I wasn't to alter it or tamper with it - that I was just to watch what was going on and report it as best I could. This shoot with John was different. I got involved, and I realized that you can't help but be touched by what goes on in front of you. I no longer believe that there is such a thing as objectivity. — Annie Leibovitz

What I learned from Lennon was something that did stay with me my whole career, which is to be very straightforward. I actually love talking about taking pictures, and I think that helps everyone. — Annie Leibovitz

The work which is manipulated looks a little boring to me. I think life is pretty strange anyway. It is wooo, wooo, wooo! — Annie Leibovitz

Coming tight was boring to me, just the face ... it didn't have enough information. — Annie Leibovitz

You don't have to sort of enhance reality. There is nothing stranger than truth. — Annie Leibovitz

I went to school at the San Francisco Art Institute, thinking I was going to become an art teacher. Within the first six months I was there, I was told that I couldn't be an art teacher unless I became an artist first. — Annie Leibovitz

My hope is that we continue to nurture the places that we love, but that we also look outside our immediate worlds. — Annie Leibovitz

Everyone keeps asking you for pictures, and after a while you get tired of that. I always say, They are in the archives. — Annie Leibovitz

When I say I want to photograph someone, what it really means is that I'd like to know them. Anyone I know I photograph. — Annie Leibovitz

I personally made a decision many years ago that I wanted to crawl into portraiture because it had a lot of latitude. — Annie Leibovitz

It's a heavy weight, the camera. Now we have modern and lightweight, small plastic cameras, but in the '70s they were heavy metal. — Annie Leibovitz

I still need the camera because it is the only reason anyone is talking to me. — Annie Leibovitz

As I get older, the book projects are - liberating is one word, but they really are me. — Annie Leibovitz

One doesn't stop seeing. One doesn't stop framing. It doesn't turn off and turn on. It's on all the time. — Annie Leibovitz

The subjects felt more comfortable if they played the role than if they had to be themselves. — Annie Leibovitz

I love having the photograph in my hand. I love looking at the photograph. I love looking at a box of photographs. I just love the still photograph. — Annie Leibovitz

What I end up shooting is the situation. I shoot the composition and my subject is going to help the composition or not. — Annie Leibovitz

All dancers are, by and large, a photographer's dream. They communicate with their bodies and they are trained to be completely responsive to a collaborative situation. — Annie Leibovitz

I fight to take a good photograph every single time. — Annie Leibovitz

I didn't want to let women down. One of the stereotypes I see breaking is the idea of aging and older women not being beautiful. — Annie Leibovitz

What has stayed true all the way through my work is my composition, I hope, and my sense of color. — Annie Leibovitz

Irving Penn said he didn't want to photograph anyone under 60, and I think there is some truth about it. — Annie Leibovitz

Most people, especially successful people, are hard-working. They want to participate. They want to do things well. — Annie Leibovitz

I sometimes find the surface interesting. To say that the mark of a good portrait is whether you get them or get the soul - I don't think this is possible all of the time. — Annie Leibovitz

I'm a huge, huge fan of photography. I have a small photography collection. As soon as I started to make some money, I bought my very first photograph: an Henri Cartier-Bresson. Then I bought a Robert Frank. — Annie Leibovitz

No one ever thought Clint Eastwood was funny, but he was. — Annie Leibovitz

When I was younger I did things with a camera I would not do by myself. I went down to the docks in San Francisco and asked a fisherman if he would take me out on his boat. I would never do that without a camera. — Annie Leibovitz

There were some advantages to being a woman photographer. I think women have more empathy with the subject. — Annie Leibovitz

I've always cared more about taking pictures than about the art market. — Annie Leibovitz

I'm pretty used to people not liking having their picture taken. I mean, if you do like to have your picture taken, I worry about you. — Annie Leibovitz

I wish that all of nature's magnificence, the emotion of the land, the living energy of place could be photographed. — Annie Leibovitz

My early childhood equipped me really well for my portrait work: The quick encounter, where you are not going to know the subject for very long. These days I am much more comfortable with the fifteen minute relationship, than I am with a life long relationship. — Annie Leibovitz

I've never liked the word 'celebrity.' I like to photograph people who are good at what they do. — Annie Leibovitz

I feel very proud of the work from the '80s because it is very bright and colorful. — Annie Leibovitz

When I take a picture I take 10 percent of what I see. — Annie Leibovitz

I've learned to create a palette, a vocabulary of ways to take pictures. — Annie Leibovitz

I shoot a little bit, maybe two rolls, medium format, which is 20 pictures, and if it's not working, I change the position. — Annie Leibovitz

As a young person, and I know it's hard to believe that I was shy, but you could take your camera, and it would take you to places: it was like having a friend, like having someone to go out with and look at the world. I would do things with a camera I wouldn't do normally if I was just by myself. — Annie Leibovitz

I'm more interested in being good than being famous. — Annie Leibovitz

It's hard to watch something go on and be talking at the same time. — Annie Leibovitz

I gave up on being a journalist - I thought having a point of view was more important than being objective. — Annie Leibovitz

A photograph is just a tiny slice of a subject. A piece of them in a moment. It seems presumptuous to think you can get more than that. — Annie Leibovitz

There is a myth that the portrait photographer is supposed to make the subject relax, and that's the real person. But I'm interested in whatever is going on. And I'm not that comfortable myself. — Annie Leibovitz

Computer photography won't be photography as we know it. I think photography will always be chemical. — Annie Leibovitz

People buy ideas, they don't buy photographs. — Annie Leibovitz

If it makes you cry, it goes in the show. — Annie Leibovitz

The first thing I did with my very first camera was climb Mt. Fuji. Climbing Mt. Fuji is a lesson in determination and moderation. It would be fair to ask if I took the moderation part to heart. But it certainly was a lesson in respecting your camera. If I was going to live with this thing, I was going to have to think about what that meant. There were not going to be any pictures without it. — Annie Leibovitz

There are still so many places on our planet that remain unexplored. I'd love to one day peel back the mystery and understand them. — Annie Leibovitz

A photograph is just a little, teeny-weeny, small piece of life. I feel like I see so much more than what I can actually get. — Annie Leibovitz

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. — Annie Leibovitz

Nature is so powerful, so strong. Capturing its essence is not easy - your work becomes a dance with light and the weather. It takes you to a place within yourself. — Annie Leibovitz

I was scared to do anything in the studio because it felt so claustrophobic. I wanted to be somewhere where things could happen and the subject wasn't just looking back at you. — Annie Leibovitz

I feel a responsibility to my backyard. I want it to be taken care of and protected. — Annie Leibovitz

When you involve people, they come out, you see them, you get to see their sense of humor. — Annie Leibovitz

Photography is not something you retire from. — Annie Leibovitz

As you get older, you have different tools, and you learn to use photography differently. — Annie Leibovitz

A very subtle difference can make the picture or not. — Annie Leibovitz

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. — Annie Leibovitz

I was out there with the White House press squad, and after his helicopter took off, and the carpet rolled up ... This wasn't a photograph that others were taking, but I continued to take pictures. — Annie Leibovitz

You have trust in what you think. If you splinter yourself and try to please everyone, you can't. — Annie Leibovitz

The camera makes you forget you're there. It's not like you are hiding but you forget, you are just looking so much. — Annie Leibovitz

Sometimes I enjoy just photographing the surface because I think it can be as revealing as going to the heart of the matter. — Annie Leibovitz

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. — Annie Leibovitz

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 thing you can do. — Annie Leibovitz

Everyone has a point of view. Some people call it style, but what we're really talking about is the guts of a photograph. When you trust your point of view, that's when you start taking pictures. — Annie Leibovitz

I don't try to overintellectua lize my concepts of people. In fact, the ideas I have, if you talk about them, they seem extremely corny and it's only in their execution that people can enjoy them ... It's something I've learned to trust: The stupider it is, the better it looks. — Annie Leibovitz

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 true. What became important was to have a point of view. — Annie Leibovitz

When I'm asked about my work, I try to explain that there is no mystery involved. It is work. But things happen all the time that are unexpected, uncontrolled, unexplainable, even magical. The work prepares you for that moment. Suddenly the clouds roll in and the soft light you longed for appears. — Annie Leibovitz

There must be a reason why photographers are not very good at verbal communication. I think we get lazy. — Annie Leibovitz

A lot can be told from what happens in between the main moments. — Annie Leibovitz

There's an idea that it's hard to be a woman artist. People assume that women have fewer opportunities, less power. But it's not any harder to be a woman artist than to be a male artist. We all take what we are given and use the parts of ourselves that feed the work. We make our way. Photographers, men and women, are particularly lucky. Photography lets you find yourself. It is a passport to people and places and to possibilities. — Annie Leibovitz

My lens of choice was always the 35 mm. It was more environmental. You can't come in closer with the 35 mm. — Annie Leibovitz

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. — Annie Leibovitz

A thing that you see in my pictures is that I was not afraid to fall in love with these people. — Annie Leibovitz