As brought to my attention on Strobist here and additionally by the Jackanory here, it appears as if I’m not the only one out there excited by the prospect of this book. I am so excited in fact, that I marched directly to Amazon and pre-ordered myself a copy of Annie Leibovitz: At Work and simply cannot wait to pour through it while soaking up all kind of tidbits and details. It seems as if there are a lot of photographers out there that love to dismiss Annie or can’t say they like her work without wincing and needing to qualify their statement somehow. I’ve got nothing but love.

Here is a person that started out with a simple camera shooting with available light as she traveled around the country with seminal rock bands at a unique time in American cultural history. And while famous for her work during this period, she refused to let it define her. She has continued to grow as a photographer and artist as she produces some of the most elaborate and complicated images consistently gracing the covers beaming at me in the supermarket.

Annie Leibovitz describes how her pictures were made, starting with Richard Nixon’s resignation, a story she covered with Hunter S. Thompson, and ending with Barack Obama’s campaign. In between are a Rolling Stones Tour, John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Demi Moore, Whoopi Goldberg, The Blues Brothers, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Keith Haring, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Patti Smith, George W. Bush, William S. Burroughs, Kate Moss and Queen Elizabeth. The most celebrated photographer of our time discusses portraiture, reportage, fashion photography, lighting, and digital cameras.

“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

Order your copy here.

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This year we headed over to the lovely home of Jeff and Jessica Anderson to take in the holiday. Joining in the celebration were their nieces and nephew along with a training partner and friend of my wife’s named Sara. You may remember Jeff from this post and his daughters from this one. Check out Jeff’s Awards Guru blog here or visit his other sites: Issaquah Trophy & Award, PokerTropies.com and Trophies2Go.com.

There was lots of grilling, yummy cocktails and a couple rounds of sparklers. We even caught a glimpse over the hills to the City of Sammamish’s impressive 45 minute display.

My wife Sasha was really getting into it here.

Sasha and her friend Sara

Bentli, one of the nieces, did a nice job as tattoo artist

Jeffy and I having a great time

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As brought to the world’s attention by APE here, I too would like to share this incredible resource of interviews with photographers put together by Randi Lynn Beach. With the photographers being so varied, it’s absolutely fascinating to hear about their inspirations and perspectives as they all became important figures in photography. Visit Pix Channel here.

The official blurb from the Pix Channel site goes like this:

Pix Channel is an ongoing series of vignettes that explore the creative process of iconic photographers in their own words. It has been a collaboration between photographer Randi Lynn Beach and graphic designer Doug Beach. The project began out of Randi’s passion for photography and desire to capture the thoughts and motivations of historic photography figures.

I am so digging his and can’t wait for more in the series.

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