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I’ve never really had a hero, or looked up to someone in the way look up to Annie Leibovitz. The photographer, famous for portraits, famous for Rolling Stone, famous for taking pictures of famous people.
That woman is my hero.
She started off so cool, down with the bands and being a hippie and living the life, just going with whatever happened, carrying her camera everywhere and the people around her just started to forget that she was taking pictures. And the pictures that came out were so amazing.
She understood what I’ve come to understand:
You cannot capture the giant moments, the most important things weren’t meant for film. You can try, but the pictures stand for reminiscing about the actual thing of beauty. You can’t take pictures of those moments, but goddammit if I’m not going to photograph everything else.
And she was crazy. She had all of these zany ideas for photoshoots, and they were so amazing. You look at the pictures and you see stories and emotions and the cores of people.
I need to take some pictures. Oh, how I wish it was light out so I could run outside with my camera and just take a picture of anything, anything. I just watched the documentary on Annie Leibovitz on PBS, which I’ve been looking forward to since I heard about it a month ago because she’s my favorite photographer, and I cannot remember ever being so inspired.
Let me take your picture.
…you know I will anyway.
Tomorrow night is the formal dinner party at Tiffany’s, I don’t know if I can wait that long to take pictures. And I mean film pictures. I think I’ll have to bring a camera into school tomorrow, the high school, I wish I could be invisible and take spontaneous portraits all day, of all the teachers, black and white, sun rising shadows and that grainy, grainy look. God, I want that so badly. Can’t you picture that? Hannigan in black and white, face in half shadows leaning over his podium before class starts, or in the playful afternoon sunlight leaning back at his desk with a book of Thoreau in his hand-laughing. Cheesman, in color, giving a wistful smile out the back window, watching the buses and thinking about her college kids? Mr. Martin looking like Chris Rock arms waving at the front of a classroom or else sitting among the students feet up on the desk smiling his big toothy grin? Mrs. Tousignant running around the hallways, with her frantic smile, waving a hand filled with papers to someone in the distance with the background motion-blurred and her other hand on her pregnant belly [though I don’t think she’s currently pregnant, but she was for 3 of my 4 years there, it feels like]. Mr. Hill, fluorescent lights glinting off his bald head, throwing a white-board marker in mock-frustration at the wall with a class of grinning sophomores behind him, or else in an empty classroom, fingers intertwined behind his head, eyes closed, looking upward with a serene expression, thinking about Carter and Lucy before the rush of kids throws him back into reality…
So, so badly.
That woman is my hero.
She started off so cool, down with the bands and being a hippie and living the life, just going with whatever happened, carrying her camera everywhere and the people around her just started to forget that she was taking pictures. And the pictures that came out were so amazing.
She understood what I’ve come to understand:
You cannot capture the giant moments, the most important things weren’t meant for film. You can try, but the pictures stand for reminiscing about the actual thing of beauty. You can’t take pictures of those moments, but goddammit if I’m not going to photograph everything else.
And she was crazy. She had all of these zany ideas for photoshoots, and they were so amazing. You look at the pictures and you see stories and emotions and the cores of people.
I need to take some pictures. Oh, how I wish it was light out so I could run outside with my camera and just take a picture of anything, anything. I just watched the documentary on Annie Leibovitz on PBS, which I’ve been looking forward to since I heard about it a month ago because she’s my favorite photographer, and I cannot remember ever being so inspired.
Let me take your picture.
…you know I will anyway.
Tomorrow night is the formal dinner party at Tiffany’s, I don’t know if I can wait that long to take pictures. And I mean film pictures. I think I’ll have to bring a camera into school tomorrow, the high school, I wish I could be invisible and take spontaneous portraits all day, of all the teachers, black and white, sun rising shadows and that grainy, grainy look. God, I want that so badly. Can’t you picture that? Hannigan in black and white, face in half shadows leaning over his podium before class starts, or in the playful afternoon sunlight leaning back at his desk with a book of Thoreau in his hand-laughing. Cheesman, in color, giving a wistful smile out the back window, watching the buses and thinking about her college kids? Mr. Martin looking like Chris Rock arms waving at the front of a classroom or else sitting among the students feet up on the desk smiling his big toothy grin? Mrs. Tousignant running around the hallways, with her frantic smile, waving a hand filled with papers to someone in the distance with the background motion-blurred and her other hand on her pregnant belly [though I don’t think she’s currently pregnant, but she was for 3 of my 4 years there, it feels like]. Mr. Hill, fluorescent lights glinting off his bald head, throwing a white-board marker in mock-frustration at the wall with a class of grinning sophomores behind him, or else in an empty classroom, fingers intertwined behind his head, eyes closed, looking upward with a serene expression, thinking about Carter and Lucy before the rush of kids throws him back into reality…
So, so badly.