November 12, 2025 • 33 mins
Annie Leibovitz is one of the most prolific and acclaimed portrait photographers of her time. Her working relationship with Martha dates back to the time that Annie photographed Martha with a cow for the memorable “Got Milk” campaign. In this wide-ranging conversation, Martha and Annie go down memory lane and discuss some of her biggest photos from John Lennon and Yoko Ono to Barbra Streisand and Jane Goodall. Annie Leibovitz has just released the second volume of her iconic book Women,which features over 250 Portraits of contemporary women. Martha and Annie bond over their love of photography, passion for their work, and their endless drive.
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
I am so excited everyone. My guest today is someone
I've really wanted to talk to in depth for a
long long time. She is the extraordinary Annie Liebowitz, an
artist whose fame rightly reflects her talent and her output.
I have known Annie for many years. I am amongst
(00:27):
the lucky people who have been the subject of her lens.
Annie and I have a few things in common. Several actually.
We have both just published a new version of a
classic book. We come from large families, and our fathers
were influential in our careers. We share a love of photography.
Some might say we're obsessive in our pursuits and our work.
(00:51):
We've even had the same assistant at one point. It's
my great pleasure to have Annie as my guest today.
Welcome to my podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Annie Leebowitz talked me into it. This is the very
first podcast I've ever done. I'm sort of like, you know,
I admire and respect you so much, and you know,
you've always come through every time I've.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
Said let's work together. And I just said, let's okay,
I'm going to jump in.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
And also, we have this wonderful reissuing of the women's
book from nineteen ninety nine.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
And in which I have a page or two pages.
It was such a beautiful, beautiful picture. I just look
at it every now and then when I'm plumbing through
your book. Your books are out in my house, and
this new volume is so fabulous. Two volumes in a slipcase,
very heavy, just came out, just came out, and you're
(01:40):
starting a book tour.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
You are the very first person I'm stopping off to see.
So it's interesting. There are a couple people who are
in the first volume and then in the second volume.
But the first volume, which was done in nineteen ninety nine,
was Susan Sontag's idea to do this, a book of
portraits of women. I wasn't too it was a good
idea because the subject was too big and too broad.
(02:04):
But we did it, and you were looking at us
women for the first I mean, you could see what
we sort of looked like.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
I mean, you know, we had no idea.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
It was a big surprise to us to see what
we looked like. So you're in that first volume, and
I just what I do remember about that picture is
that you were at the pinnacle of everything you were doing,
and you took me out in your truck, you know,
driving Fairfield property. Yeah, and there was this moment where
you paused. You were in the back of the truck
(02:34):
and you kind of leaned on the truck. And it
was such an unusual picture for you at that time
because you're usually smiling in every picture and you're, you know,
very robust, and it was just this moment that was
a kind of an off moment, more of a meditative moment,
because you know, you are a very serious person as
(02:56):
well as everything else you do. I ended up really
loving that picture. I'm putting that in.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
I love that picture. But that wasn't the first time
that I posed for your camera. First time was nineteen
ninety six when I got a call. There was a
campaign that was in every single magazine everywhere called Milk,
and it was encouraging people to drink milk. And you
had a milk mustache, which was applied with a Q tip.
(03:23):
By the way, they had a special thick milk to
put it was like soud formula. Yeah, it was sour
cream and a few other yogurt. Not untasty, it was okay,
but we had it put on our lip, our upper lip,
so that we looked like We had a milk mustache,
and I posed with Clover the cow, a beautiful big
(03:44):
Holstein cow. And after the shoot, you know, the farmer
called me and asked me if I wanted Clover. He
wanted me to adopt her. Oh, no, I did, and
I didn't. At that time. I didn't have a place
for a cow. I do now, but that time I
did not have a place for a cow. And I
think she made her way into McDonald's Hamburger's.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
We did over one hundred and fifty milk had you know,
I was just thinking about the roster. Everyone you know
did them, and we had to create a mustache that
if you licked. If you ended up licking your lips,
you didn't, you were to get you were going to
kill over and die. And it wasn't made out of
you know, paint or toxic or I think it seemed
(04:28):
like the right idea to go to the source for milk.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
You were great. That was great. It's actually one of
my favorite ones.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
Oh and I was not afraid of Clover. I mean,
I'm sure some of your subjects might not have liked
standing so close to a giant cow who weighed a
couple of thousand pounds, but she was lovely. So you
publish your original volume of women in nineteen ninety nine,
and now you have published this new volume with photos
from the past few decades.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
I had no thought about reissuing the original book. Boo.
Hillary Clinton had come to me and said it'd be
nice to commemorate the original book. It was out of print,
and it was her suggestion that we reprinted. And I
sat and looked through the book. It really felt timeless,
you know, on some level it.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
Was very timeless.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
It really holds up well.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
And I thought, you know, it's been twenty five years
since that book, and I have photographs such great women
since that time, incredible women. When you read the bios
in the second volume and realize who those women are,
it's like it's so powerful. The bio read is better
than looking at the pictures. I made a decision to
(05:41):
look through the work from nineteen ninety nine on photographs
of women that I had done and make an edit.
So the second book is really different than the first book.
The second book really has not only photographs that I love,
but also women that I admire. It's not like the
first book, which it was very, very focused on trying
to see women from all walks of life.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
Right, So these are women that you have admired. Name
somebody who was just all inspiring that in this new
volume for you to photograph. You have such power to
be able to go and photograph the most incredible people
everywhere who is so inspiring for you in this book.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
That's really hard to pick, you know, one over the other,
because it's my favorite is a powerful well Jane Goodall.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
You know for sure you're right Nextagen Goodall, and she
just passed away.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
I loved that lady, yeah, so much.
Speaker 3 (06:34):
She was amazing.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
And first of all, I really really wished I could
have done her in the native habitat of.
Speaker 3 (06:41):
You know, you know, Rwanda, or in the jungle or
you know, with her with her animals.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
But I sort of sufficed with photographing her on her
own because you know, I had the opportunity and it
was a very quick shoot and I didn't think I
got anything at all. And I got back to the
office into the studio and started to go through the
work and I looked at her face. She's looking at me.
It's why she has that communication ability without having to talk,
(07:07):
you know. Her face was so warm and beautiful and
kind of understanding.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
It was. It's just a remarkable, remarkable look.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
It was a remarkable human being. And her teaching and anthropology.
I mean this was I studied a lot of anthropology
at college at Barnard, and then when I met Jane,
it all came around and I realized that that's what
it takes to be an anthropologist. I had had a
couple classes with Margaret Meade, who was a similar really yes,
(07:37):
oh my god kind of person, and then, oh my god,
that has been so amazing, so amazing, And I read
all her works, read everything that she ever wrote about
her explorations down in New Guinea and all those other places,
and then to meet that beautiful, beautiful chimp expert. It
was just Jane goodall. May she rest in peace because
(07:59):
she did a lot for humanity, a lot, and also
for conservation. So when you set out to photograph a subject,
whether an official portrait of Queen Elizabeth or Billie Eilish.
My granddaughter's idol is Billy Eilish. What are fabulous pictures
you've taken of her?
Speaker 2 (08:19):
No? Thank you?
Speaker 1 (08:19):
So what is your process when you met Billy for
the first time?
Speaker 2 (08:23):
Would you think, well, everyone is surprised that, you know,
I do research, you know, but that can't take those
pictures without doing research, exactly, Sonot, you are thorough exactly.
So it's amazing all the film making that she and
her brother made while they were making their music, and
those were some of the best, most telling pieces of
(08:43):
information that you could use. But I was just thinking
about other people in this book, you know, obviously Justice Jackson,
who's like a heroine.
Speaker 3 (08:52):
The photograph was done for Vogue. It was her idea.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
She wanted to stand at the Lincoln Memorial, a very
poignant moment because she was Lincoln's words off the wall.
And I took the picture and she's amazing. Michelle Obama
who agreed to sit for the book. I should say
she stood for the book. She stood for she stood
for the bok.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
That new picture of hers a little wild for a
first lady.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
Her assistant was standing next to me and as we
were shooting, and she said, that's my first lady.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
Oh boy, the way do you see this picture of
Michelle Obama in blue je You know, Yeah, she's emerging,
she's growing into herself after having been confined in the
White House. Yes, she and I think she really did
feel terribly confined in the White House. But Michelle, as
you say, is verry liberated in your new portrait.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
She was funny because we got a call from her
office and said, okay, well Michelle will do it, but.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
Can she wear jeans?
Speaker 2 (09:51):
I said sure, you know because I photographed her three
or four times for covers of you know, during during
her tenure.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
Old gorgeous covers. By the way, no.
Speaker 3 (10:01):
Thank you, she was, she was gorgeous.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
President Obama, you know, I worked with him when he
was when he was just running for Senate. I spent
a lot of time with him, and and he just said.
Speaker 3 (10:11):
Just make her beautiful. Just make her beautiful like.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
He loves her.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
He loved her.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
You didn't. You didn't have to make her beautiful.
Speaker 3 (10:16):
He didn't have to make her beautiful.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
It is beautiful, but but you make her, you make
her exciting. It said that your interest in photography began
in your teenage years. Let's go back, let's go back.
You were born where?
Speaker 2 (10:36):
Oh well, I was born in Connecticut, believe it or not, Waterbury, Connecticut, but.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
I passed through Waterbury whenever I go to Maine, very
industrial town. It is an industrial town that had a
lot of mills. Didn't it have fabric mills?
Speaker 3 (10:50):
My father worked in the mills.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
He did. You were inspired by Life magazine and it's
powerful photojournalistic galleries.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
I was inspired by everything. Yeah, it wasn't just like
I mean it was.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
I was actually inspired by I'm inspired by their picture.
Speaker 3 (11:04):
Stories, you know, like the country doctor Eugene Smith.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
But were you always focused on human beings with your lens?
Pretty much so of all the photographers before and after you,
whose words you look at for inspiration any any other thing.
Speaker 3 (11:19):
I'm such a fan of photography. I drink it all up.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
I basically learned on Cardiaprason and Robert Frank I mean,
you know, just reportage, and that was personal repetage. So
it wasn't necessarily journalism. And I tried to do journalism,
but I was rotten at it because I really like
having a point of that you take your time.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
I wish I took more time.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
You do.
Speaker 3 (11:41):
You take your time much.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
I'm glad you're saying that, because I want to come
back to photograph photographing you, because I wanted to tell
you that I don't like the picture I did of
you for the book.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
We will get back together again. I want, I want,
I want you to photograph you with Jude, my granddaughter.
Oh that would be beautiful, beautiful, you know girl, fourteen
year old who's so pure and beautiful. You would you
would like her?
Speaker 2 (12:05):
Do you know?
Speaker 1 (12:05):
This is what's And she's a good photographer.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
What's coming full circle for me is that I do
think my best photographs are my family pictures and they
mean them, They mean the most to me. And then
I really do love doing family pictures for people.
Speaker 3 (12:21):
And I think I told you that.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
I really want to do that with my grandson, my daughter,
and my and my granddaughter.
Speaker 3 (12:28):
Okay, so do that, So done deal.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
That's okay? Shake. What's your favorite camera at present?
Speaker 2 (12:36):
I really believe it's about content and you shouldn't worry
about what you're using. I actually use three or four
different cameras. I use them for different reasons. I have
a fugi, I have an icon, you know, I have Alika,
I have a canon for when I want to do
fast repetage movement. But the camera I use all the
(12:56):
time is my camera phone, your iPhone.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
Yeah, I saw you taking a picture.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
Just look, you know, you know why I think somewhere
along the line, I wish I could have just had
a camera built inside, you know, my forehead or something,
so I could just shoot when I don't think about
you've gotten a pair of those yet, No, Oh they're good.
You shouldn't have to think about it. You really shouldn't.
I mean, you should be able to enjoy photographing. You
know what's in front of you? How many pictures do
(13:23):
you have in your phone right now? I mean, I'm
so bad about that. I mean it's like, I go,
I have two hundred thousands. Oh my god, I'm sure,
I know. And I love taking pictures.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
I love well.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
Someone asked me for they want to see some some
photographs of my pond upstate.
Speaker 3 (13:39):
It's like, you know, fifteen thousand pictures come up.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
How do you feel when somebody calls you a portraitist.
Speaker 3 (13:47):
I'm fine with that.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
Yeah, I'm fine with it because it's the best way
to sort of be able to wander and dabble through
many different forms of photography and not worry about it.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
I know I'm not a photojournalist.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
And also I feel really responsible to the portraiture at
this point.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
I mean the subject.
Speaker 3 (14:07):
I mean, this is the subject.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
The fact that we have been doing this for over
fifty years and when you look at our time, it's amazing.
Speaker 3 (14:14):
I was just thinking, I.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
Brought in these pictures of Diane Keaton, you know, to
show you because I hassed a way a couple of
days ago.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
Yeah, she gave so much joy to so many people
in her films.
Speaker 3 (14:27):
But she was you know she.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
I knew her really because I photographed her very like
in the eighties with Woody, not with Woody, but just
she was really an artist and she was a photographer.
Speaker 3 (14:40):
She loved photography, she loved books.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
So when we would work together, it definitely was inspiring
to me to get out of the genre of what
you think is a typical portrait. She always wanted to
sort of hide herself and she would come to the
shoot with ideas, very serious with me, and she did
hide herself in her costumes, didn't she She did, But
(15:07):
I mean she had a great, great style.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
She had a great, great style.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
I remember doing a photograph of her, I think it
was for Vanny Fair and the stylist was in tears
because she wouldn't wear any clothes both because she basically,
how can you dress iron King, she's going to dress herself.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
Of course. Gradon Carter said on my podcast sitting right
where you're sitting, that you are one of the few
people he knows who works harder than I work. But
you do work so hard, and you have worked for
a very very long time at just mastering and perfecting
and enlarging your craft. Where did your drive come from?
Speaker 3 (15:43):
I think I love my work.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
I don't know, it's as simple when you take a
good photograph, it feels so great. And then also this
other idea that when we talked about portraiture, where the
body of work takes over, you know, where you realize
that it's a really interesting And I'm in a unique
position in that respect to look at all of this
work from all this period of time. And in fact,
(16:06):
I'm going to work on like a four volume set
of books next for the archives.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
Where is your archive?
Speaker 3 (16:14):
My archive?
Speaker 2 (16:15):
Actually, I mean I have the I own the copyright
and everything to all my work. But I mean right
now it's still in New York, but it will go
to Luma. Maya Hoffmann, Oh great, Yeah, it's actually comforting
to know that there's a place to house all that work.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
Yeah, Mayah Hoffman is such a visionary too, isn't she.
Speaker 3 (16:36):
She's amazing.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
Yeah. Really, she used to visit her down in a mystique. Yeah,
and then she was building her museum in the south
of France, and what an extraordinary woman.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
She let me do this edit of my early work
from nineteen seventy nineteen eighty three, and we took over
our whole warehouse. It was like a river of photographs.
It was so amazing to get that initial work edited.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
How do you keep your work? I mean, do you
keep prints, do you keep negatives? Do you keep everything?
Speaker 2 (17:05):
Early on we had prints, but now it's all digital.
But I still work in paper. I love to print,
and I'm a big fan of the xerox. I mean,
I love xeroxes. Yeah, I think they're great. You know,
they look great.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
What about just the home printer?
Speaker 3 (17:19):
No, sure, I mean you can get a little better one.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
Yeah. No, I have some good printers now. And I
love printing pictures.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
No, it's glossy paper or someemi glossy paper.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
Yeah. Fun. Totally.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
You can hang those on your wall, you know, just totally.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
I you know, I had incredible refrigerator. When I see
a picture of the girls or something that I really like.
Just print it up and stick it on the refrigerator.
Speaker 3 (17:42):
It's great.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
Is it harder to photograph a famous person, a well
known person, or a unknown person?
Speaker 3 (18:00):
They all come with the different ways to approach.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
Well, you've got John Lennon to undress and curl up.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
Come on, John Lennon addressed, and there he.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
Is, just lying on his side, nuzzled into his lovely wife,
Yoko Ono, and which became one of the most incredibly
famous pictures ever ever ever taken.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
Well, you know, at the time, you know the story
about that photograph where he was killed the same day
the photograph was taken, and I was sent by Rolling Stone,
and Rolling Stone said to me, we don't want to
put John and Yoko on the cover.
Speaker 3 (18:40):
We just want to put John on the cover.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
So I knew, I knew John, and so I said
to John, and he really wanted to put yoga on
the cover.
Speaker 3 (18:47):
I said, okay, well, we're going to have to do
something really weird, really good, you know.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
And we just did a few frames and you know,
we looked at a polaroid and he loved it and
he said, this is our this is us.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
And then he gets shot down in his right in
the front door of the Dakota. That was a very
sad day for so many of us, poor Yoko, and
I mean the whole thing that was a crazy day.
Speaker 3 (19:13):
Again was interesting.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
And now me getting older and us getting older and us,
you know, and just thinking like Diane Keaton, you know,
dying at seventy nine, which that's not a bad life
as a good life, but it's not so old.
Speaker 3 (19:25):
But it's not. It doesn't not. I feel the same way.
I feel it's not.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
So because we're all talking about longevity. Yeah, we're all
talking about healthy aging. We are all talking about what
can we do to prolong our good lives? What are
you doing it? You prolong your life? You look great
by the way.
Speaker 3 (19:43):
I refuse to be lazy.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
I will just get up and go up the stairs
and go get something and bring it back down.
Speaker 3 (19:48):
I just keep moving.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
You worked out all Jamike. You go to the gym,
I know, I don't.
Speaker 3 (19:52):
I can't stand gyms.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
Oh no, yeah, no. I love the outside so well.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
I think that's what Upstate is for for me, is
to get out and walk and we have a pond
and I I literally we just now it's like really cold,
but I swim in it. You know, you came to
swim house up in Maine. Do you remember, Oh yeah, no,
we took care. Yes, you took Roseanne.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
She remembers that I had that giant, giant guest book
that I especially made for the magazine. This is a
book that's like four feet by three feet and on
beautiful and beautiful paper. And Annie Leebu, it's put her
foot on inkpads. And you printed your foot in my book.
Speaker 3 (20:34):
Well, it's easier than having to write something, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
It's your foot, you're and what size foot do you have?
Like a size ten?
Speaker 3 (20:40):
No, it's twelve.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
Oh, a size twelve blue foot in my guest book,
which I am only.
Speaker 3 (20:47):
One foot, just one too.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
You just did one foot. Interesting, I have to come
back and I'm going, yes, you have to come back
and do the other foot. And I'm going to frame
it because I have that book in a very prominent.
Speaker 3 (20:59):
Place, such a great place. And I love Maine.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
Oh I do too, God, I love that place so much.
It is a it's a RESTful place. It's incredible, and
it's a and it's a good place to hike and
to think and to do you know stuff? So you
have to come back to Maine. It was so funny.
So what's what is your preference? Is it the studio
or is it out in the field.
Speaker 3 (21:21):
I don't even have a place to shoot.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
I used to have the most incredible which I you
know that those buildings on twenties.
Speaker 3 (21:26):
I've been into incredible studios.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
And part of letting that all go was I wanted
to force myself to be on location.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
But that was that was your really greatest studio.
Speaker 3 (21:36):
It was great, but I had made the decision when
I sold it.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
I was moving downtown into some houses which I loved,
and I thought it was gonna be in forever.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
But then, I mean, Upstate has really become home now.
It's so interesting.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
I come and see it sometimes.
Speaker 3 (21:50):
Oh I would love for you too, Are you really?
I really would like you swim across the pond? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (21:55):
Whatever, not in the winter. I'm not going to swim.
You connect with your subject, you really do. I mean
you can see it in their faces, you can see
it in their expressions. What makes you so good at that?
Speaker 3 (22:07):
I don't know what I'm doing, quite honestly.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
When I first started this work, the photograph is the
most important.
Speaker 3 (22:13):
Thing to me. Left the people of the dust.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
You know, it didn't matter, it was like But I
think as you get older, I really want to take
a photograph that they like as well. I don't have
any other agenda. I want the subject to like themselves
and see themselves in the photograph, and that interests me.
Speaker 3 (22:32):
You know a great deal.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
Who photographs you? What's your favorite picture of you?
Speaker 3 (22:36):
Maplethorpe took a good picture, he did.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
Well.
Speaker 3 (22:38):
Do you remember Dwayne Michaels.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
Oh, yes, I know Dwayne Michaels.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
And his work is very surreal and you see through
the bodies and things like that.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
He took some pictures of me fashion pictures for Mademoiselle magazine.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
We've known each other a long time, you know, because
do you remember when we met out out on Long
Island in the Hamptons. You were nobody yet, you know,
and if everyone knew you were going somewhere.
Speaker 3 (23:01):
Oh they did, they did, and you knew you were
going somewhere.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
Those early days in East Tampton when I first bought
my house out there. I loved that.
Speaker 3 (23:10):
I loved you. You haven't changed, You really haven't changed.
You are that person.
Speaker 1 (23:14):
I thank you, thank you. I want to be I
want to be the original.
Speaker 3 (23:19):
There you are.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
We were talking about Dwayne Michaels and who photographed me,
because he came to photographing at twenty sixth Street Studio
and he ran around and he took all these pictures
and then he left and then he called me up
and he said, Annie, I forgot to put film in
the camera.
Speaker 3 (23:36):
Oh, come on, I'm not kidding. And it was like
I just laughed so hard.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
You ever forget to do that?
Speaker 3 (23:44):
No, No, that that never happened. What did happen?
Speaker 2 (23:47):
I was once photographing Barbara Streisand in the seventies, and
I had a motor drive camera, and you know, she
didn't have much time, and I ran around the house
and took all these pictures and I kept thinking, this
is really strange.
Speaker 3 (23:59):
This seems like the endless role, you know.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
But what happened was is this brockets got torn in
the motor drive, which you know, you should never use
a motor drive camera. You've got no pictures, And so
I had some, but I didn't, you know, I was
like too embarrassed to ever tell her.
Speaker 3 (24:15):
You can tell if that there's film in a camera.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
Oh, it's something you can feel it. I had to
fire a couple of photographers working on my magazine that
made technical errors like that, which were so bad, and
it said, come back in five years when you learn
how to use a camera. I would say that. And
now some of them are fantastic photographers doing really good work.
And they remember, they remember when I told them to
go away. You have to work with so many image makers. Oh, yes,
(24:42):
you know, but I love that.
Speaker 3 (24:43):
I have learned, but you're directing. You pretty learned telling a.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
Lot about photography, working with great photographers. But it's all
about light. But you're it is light. It is about
especially for.
Speaker 3 (24:55):
Food, I mean, and any actually anything is about light.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
Well, faces to you were so funny because when I
was coming to your house this time, you said, Okay,
what time of day do you want and which light
do you want? Like you know, and I never could
find the light in the house.
Speaker 3 (25:11):
And light is so important to me.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
It really teaches me exactly what you know, I'm going
to work with the light, whatever it is.
Speaker 3 (25:18):
And I couldn't find the light that day. Maybe that
was the problem.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
Maybe it was just a dark day. It was a
dark day.
Speaker 4 (25:24):
Yeah, because I was forcing it to happen. It was
it was the middle of the day, and that the
room where you is a western facing room, and it
would have had much more light later on.
Speaker 3 (25:36):
It was stupid on my part. You should fire me.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
I'm not. I'm never going to fire any.
Speaker 3 (25:41):
They can fire me. I shouldn't be fired. I shouldn't
put put that. How would you like to be remembered? Answer?
Speaker 1 (25:49):
As a documentarian, No, No.
Speaker 3 (25:53):
As a portraitist, well, I'm really proud of the work.
There's no two ways. There's no two ways about that.
Speaker 2 (25:59):
I can actually stand out side of the work and
look at it and go, I just can't believe this
that you see that youth, that kind of insanity of
just you know, working, you know, shooting every single.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
Day, and we're capturing imagery that nobody else would have
ever captured.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
Well, I mean, you know, photography has just an incredible
lineage of great photographers to sort of and be inspired by,
and I feel.
Speaker 3 (26:27):
Like I sort of absorbed them all. I mean like
I ate them up. They were just like so powerful.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
To the depth of your photography is quite amazing. I
mean there's so much in all ages. I mean, you
have been photographing, what you said, fifty years publishing publishing photographs.
That's a long time in a long career, but it's
kind of almost identifiable, which is so incredibly fabulous. I
(26:53):
mean I've worked with like Avid On, I mean, oh
my god, well he was and it was very total
genius and it was more expected it was so it
was so well lit. It's almost all studio, you know,
and nobody was brilliant.
Speaker 2 (27:09):
I mean I walked into that studio, you know, after
he died, he could light with one light in it,
the way he structured the walls and how they be,
and he's.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
Going to put you down in a little hole in
the ground in the studio. Do you know that? I
had to go downstairs into a little square and look
up at him.
Speaker 3 (27:30):
Seriously.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
Yeah, it was so interesting. I paid attention to all
of that and the resulting pictures. And I was not
a top model. I was like a medium model. But
it was so interesting to watch all these guys and
how they.
Speaker 3 (27:45):
Worked and what do you think of photographers?
Speaker 2 (27:47):
Do why?
Speaker 1 (27:49):
I mean, for I have had a very nice relationship
with almost every single photographer I've ever worked with, both
professionally as an editor, and also as a model. I
enjoyed being photographed, and I also enjoy watching somebody photograph
because I like to see.
Speaker 3 (28:05):
I think that is true.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
I think, you know, I think when we have worked,
I mean it's yeah, I really enjoy it. I mean
like you sort of you sort of give yourself over
to the process. I think that's really interesting. I like
a lot of people are still holding on to to themselves.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
But but it's so much fun to watch. And you're
you are busy when you're photographing. I you know, the
last photo shoot, you were busy thinking, thinking, thinking, who
does the retouching on your pictures?
Speaker 2 (28:34):
I have this extraordinary Actually, there's two people in my studio.
One is very kind of old fashioned retoucher, but he'll
take too much away from from a photograph. The other
one is really an artist and I love working with them.
And he's shown me because I don't really know how
to use the computer, and I'll sit behind him with
(28:55):
a little stick and kind of hit him on the
back of his endpoint and direct. It's interesting to vote. Yeah,
do you have the final picture? You make the final picture.
I make the final picture, and then you know, we
have a cover on Vogue this December, and it's definitely
you know, composited, and you'll see your.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
Vanity Fair covers, those multiple people covers, which I always
loved so much because you had what was the greatest
number of people you ever had in one photograph.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
Oh definitely. I would kind of fight that all the time.
I wanted to go back to single, single people or whatever.
But basically, you know, you know who taught me how
to shoot like those large groups is David Hockney. When
you look at his work and you saw that like
it was done in pieces, I started to shoot it
in pieces. And that's how how we talked.
Speaker 1 (29:46):
Did you see the thing that he did of the
Grand Canyon, that giant picture that was in the lou
in Paris, I mean I've seen it, It's made it
six hundred different photographs.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
He's incredible and he made me. He brought me down down.
I mean talking about people inspired me. It got me
down to my knees when I first saw all that
collage work and I realized that's how the I sees
that is, you know, and you want to throw away
the camera because the camera was keeping you within the
rectangle or the square or whatever format. You were using,
(30:19):
and I was taught to use the rectangle. You know,
Cardi bra Zan or Robert Frank they composed within that rectangle.
Speaker 3 (30:25):
They you know, you that's how you shot.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
And then Hockney said throw it away. You know, it's
like it's and and he really you know, to this day,
you know, if I can't fit something in the rectangle,
I'll just move left and right and and put it together.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
And put it together.
Speaker 3 (30:41):
It's really not a problem.
Speaker 1 (30:42):
I love that. And I think with good editing now
you can do that too.
Speaker 3 (30:45):
Oh.
Speaker 2 (30:46):
Absolutely, And there's no reason why not. It's not it's
not real life. I'm not doing journalism. No reason why doing.
Speaker 1 (30:55):
That's a you can't pat you are painting with a
picture with pictures.
Speaker 3 (30:59):
Totally.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
Yeah, it is incredible. So do you have favorite pictures
that you've taken? I mean, can you have three favorite
pictures that we could think about?
Speaker 2 (31:08):
Okay, it's an old, old story. It's in the first
Women's Book. I photographed my mother for the Women's Book.
She was nervous, she was in her she was my age,
you know, middle seventies. I photographed her up state, you know,
in open shade, and she was nervous, and she says
she was afraid of looking old. And you know, she
(31:30):
grew up her her generation. You know that everyone was
supposed to smile for photographs. So I didn't trust the
smile completely and I wanted to show I didn't really
want her to smile, so but I didn't say that.
But so the photograph is un is probably my favorite photograph.
When you look at the photograph of her, it's as
(31:51):
if the camera's not there.
Speaker 3 (31:53):
She's just looking at me.
Speaker 2 (31:55):
There's no camera. That is another thing to obtain when
you take a photograph, as you don't want to feel
the camera. You want to just go right into what
the content, what's in.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
I encourage everyone to get the two volume set of
Women by Annie Lebowitz. It is a beautiful book. I
think it's ninety nine dollars in ninety No, No, it's
fifty dollars a book, you know. I that's an expensive
it's beautifully printed. No, Annie, congratulations, it's a it's a
(32:27):
beautiful accomplishment. And it just what it does is just
extend your importance so into the far far future, because
you have been not only a student, you've been a
learner and a teacher and now an icon of photography.
Thank you so much.
Speaker 3 (32:45):
Thank you Mark I, thank you this is It wasn't
so hard.
Speaker 1 (32:47):
At it wasn't getting better. See
I am so excited everyone. My guest today is someone
I've really wanted to talk to in depth for a
long long time. She is the extraordinary Annie Liebowitz, an
artist whose fame rightly reflects her talent and her output.
I have known Annie for many years. I am amongst
(00:27):
the lucky people who have been the subject of her lens.
Annie and I have a few things in common. Several actually.
We have both just published a new version of a
classic book. We come from large families, and our fathers
were influential in our careers. We share a love of photography.
Some might say we're obsessive in our pursuits and our work.
(00:51):
We've even had the same assistant at one point. It's
my great pleasure to have Annie as my guest today.
Welcome to my podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Annie Leebowitz talked me into it. This is the very
first podcast I've ever done. I'm sort of like, you know,
I admire and respect you so much, and you know,
you've always come through every time I've.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
Said let's work together. And I just said, let's okay,
I'm going to jump in.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
And also, we have this wonderful reissuing of the women's
book from nineteen ninety nine.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
And in which I have a page or two pages.
It was such a beautiful, beautiful picture. I just look
at it every now and then when I'm plumbing through
your book. Your books are out in my house, and
this new volume is so fabulous. Two volumes in a slipcase,
very heavy, just came out, just came out, and you're
(01:40):
starting a book tour.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
You are the very first person I'm stopping off to see.
So it's interesting. There are a couple people who are
in the first volume and then in the second volume.
But the first volume, which was done in nineteen ninety nine,
was Susan Sontag's idea to do this, a book of
portraits of women. I wasn't too it was a good
idea because the subject was too big and too broad.
(02:04):
But we did it, and you were looking at us
women for the first I mean, you could see what
we sort of looked like.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
I mean, you know, we had no idea.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
It was a big surprise to us to see what
we looked like. So you're in that first volume, and
I just what I do remember about that picture is
that you were at the pinnacle of everything you were doing,
and you took me out in your truck, you know,
driving Fairfield property. Yeah, and there was this moment where
you paused. You were in the back of the truck
(02:34):
and you kind of leaned on the truck. And it
was such an unusual picture for you at that time
because you're usually smiling in every picture and you're, you know,
very robust, and it was just this moment that was
a kind of an off moment, more of a meditative moment,
because you know, you are a very serious person as
(02:56):
well as everything else you do. I ended up really
loving that picture. I'm putting that in.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
I love that picture. But that wasn't the first time
that I posed for your camera. First time was nineteen
ninety six when I got a call. There was a
campaign that was in every single magazine everywhere called Milk,
and it was encouraging people to drink milk. And you
had a milk mustache, which was applied with a Q tip.
(03:23):
By the way, they had a special thick milk to
put it was like soud formula. Yeah, it was sour
cream and a few other yogurt. Not untasty, it was okay,
but we had it put on our lip, our upper lip,
so that we looked like We had a milk mustache,
and I posed with Clover the cow, a beautiful big
(03:44):
Holstein cow. And after the shoot, you know, the farmer
called me and asked me if I wanted Clover. He
wanted me to adopt her. Oh, no, I did, and
I didn't. At that time. I didn't have a place
for a cow. I do now, but that time I
did not have a place for a cow. And I
think she made her way into McDonald's Hamburger's.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
We did over one hundred and fifty milk had you know,
I was just thinking about the roster. Everyone you know
did them, and we had to create a mustache that
if you licked. If you ended up licking your lips,
you didn't, you were to get you were going to
kill over and die. And it wasn't made out of
you know, paint or toxic or I think it seemed
(04:28):
like the right idea to go to the source for milk.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
You were great. That was great. It's actually one of
my favorite ones.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
Oh and I was not afraid of Clover. I mean,
I'm sure some of your subjects might not have liked
standing so close to a giant cow who weighed a
couple of thousand pounds, but she was lovely. So you
publish your original volume of women in nineteen ninety nine,
and now you have published this new volume with photos
from the past few decades.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
I had no thought about reissuing the original book. Boo.
Hillary Clinton had come to me and said it'd be
nice to commemorate the original book. It was out of print,
and it was her suggestion that we reprinted. And I
sat and looked through the book. It really felt timeless,
you know, on some level it.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
Was very timeless.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
It really holds up well.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
And I thought, you know, it's been twenty five years
since that book, and I have photographs such great women
since that time, incredible women. When you read the bios
in the second volume and realize who those women are,
it's like it's so powerful. The bio read is better
than looking at the pictures. I made a decision to
(05:41):
look through the work from nineteen ninety nine on photographs
of women that I had done and make an edit.
So the second book is really different than the first book.
The second book really has not only photographs that I love,
but also women that I admire. It's not like the
first book, which it was very, very focused on trying
to see women from all walks of life.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
Right, So these are women that you have admired. Name
somebody who was just all inspiring that in this new
volume for you to photograph. You have such power to
be able to go and photograph the most incredible people
everywhere who is so inspiring for you in this book.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
That's really hard to pick, you know, one over the other,
because it's my favorite is a powerful well Jane Goodall.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
You know for sure you're right Nextagen Goodall, and she
just passed away.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
I loved that lady, yeah, so much.
Speaker 3 (06:34):
She was amazing.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
And first of all, I really really wished I could
have done her in the native habitat of.
Speaker 3 (06:41):
You know, you know, Rwanda, or in the jungle or
you know, with her with her animals.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
But I sort of sufficed with photographing her on her
own because you know, I had the opportunity and it
was a very quick shoot and I didn't think I
got anything at all. And I got back to the
office into the studio and started to go through the
work and I looked at her face. She's looking at me.
It's why she has that communication ability without having to talk,
(07:07):
you know. Her face was so warm and beautiful and
kind of understanding.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
It was. It's just a remarkable, remarkable look.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
It was a remarkable human being. And her teaching and anthropology.
I mean this was I studied a lot of anthropology
at college at Barnard, and then when I met Jane,
it all came around and I realized that that's what
it takes to be an anthropologist. I had had a
couple classes with Margaret Meade, who was a similar really yes,
(07:37):
oh my god kind of person, and then, oh my god,
that has been so amazing, so amazing, And I read
all her works, read everything that she ever wrote about
her explorations down in New Guinea and all those other places,
and then to meet that beautiful, beautiful chimp expert. It
was just Jane goodall. May she rest in peace because
(07:59):
she did a lot for humanity, a lot, and also
for conservation. So when you set out to photograph a subject,
whether an official portrait of Queen Elizabeth or Billie Eilish.
My granddaughter's idol is Billy Eilish. What are fabulous pictures
you've taken of her?
Speaker 2 (08:19):
No? Thank you?
Speaker 1 (08:19):
So what is your process when you met Billy for
the first time?
Speaker 2 (08:23):
Would you think, well, everyone is surprised that, you know,
I do research, you know, but that can't take those
pictures without doing research, exactly, Sonot, you are thorough exactly.
So it's amazing all the film making that she and
her brother made while they were making their music, and
those were some of the best, most telling pieces of
(08:43):
information that you could use. But I was just thinking
about other people in this book, you know, obviously Justice Jackson,
who's like a heroine.
Speaker 3 (08:52):
The photograph was done for Vogue. It was her idea.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
She wanted to stand at the Lincoln Memorial, a very
poignant moment because she was Lincoln's words off the wall.
And I took the picture and she's amazing. Michelle Obama
who agreed to sit for the book. I should say
she stood for the book. She stood for she stood
for the bok.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
That new picture of hers a little wild for a
first lady.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
Her assistant was standing next to me and as we
were shooting, and she said, that's my first lady.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
Oh boy, the way do you see this picture of
Michelle Obama in blue je You know, Yeah, she's emerging,
she's growing into herself after having been confined in the
White House. Yes, she and I think she really did
feel terribly confined in the White House. But Michelle, as
you say, is verry liberated in your new portrait.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
She was funny because we got a call from her
office and said, okay, well Michelle will do it, but.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
Can she wear jeans?
Speaker 2 (09:51):
I said sure, you know because I photographed her three
or four times for covers of you know, during during
her tenure.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
Old gorgeous covers. By the way, no.
Speaker 3 (10:01):
Thank you, she was, she was gorgeous.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
President Obama, you know, I worked with him when he
was when he was just running for Senate. I spent
a lot of time with him, and and he just said.
Speaker 3 (10:11):
Just make her beautiful. Just make her beautiful like.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
He loves her.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
He loved her.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
You didn't. You didn't have to make her beautiful.
Speaker 3 (10:16):
He didn't have to make her beautiful.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
It is beautiful, but but you make her, you make
her exciting. It said that your interest in photography began
in your teenage years. Let's go back, let's go back.
You were born where?
Speaker 2 (10:36):
Oh well, I was born in Connecticut, believe it or not, Waterbury, Connecticut, but.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
I passed through Waterbury whenever I go to Maine, very
industrial town. It is an industrial town that had a
lot of mills. Didn't it have fabric mills?
Speaker 3 (10:50):
My father worked in the mills.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
He did. You were inspired by Life magazine and it's
powerful photojournalistic galleries.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
I was inspired by everything. Yeah, it wasn't just like
I mean it was.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
I was actually inspired by I'm inspired by their picture.
Speaker 3 (11:04):
Stories, you know, like the country doctor Eugene Smith.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
But were you always focused on human beings with your lens?
Pretty much so of all the photographers before and after you,
whose words you look at for inspiration any any other thing.
Speaker 3 (11:19):
I'm such a fan of photography. I drink it all up.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
I basically learned on Cardiaprason and Robert Frank I mean,
you know, just reportage, and that was personal repetage. So
it wasn't necessarily journalism. And I tried to do journalism,
but I was rotten at it because I really like
having a point of that you take your time.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
I wish I took more time.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
You do.
Speaker 3 (11:41):
You take your time much.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
I'm glad you're saying that, because I want to come
back to photograph photographing you, because I wanted to tell
you that I don't like the picture I did of
you for the book.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
We will get back together again. I want, I want,
I want you to photograph you with Jude, my granddaughter.
Oh that would be beautiful, beautiful, you know girl, fourteen
year old who's so pure and beautiful. You would you
would like her?
Speaker 2 (12:05):
Do you know?
Speaker 1 (12:05):
This is what's And she's a good photographer.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
What's coming full circle for me is that I do
think my best photographs are my family pictures and they
mean them, They mean the most to me. And then
I really do love doing family pictures for people.
Speaker 3 (12:21):
And I think I told you that.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
I really want to do that with my grandson, my daughter,
and my and my granddaughter.
Speaker 3 (12:28):
Okay, so do that, So done deal.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
That's okay? Shake. What's your favorite camera at present?
Speaker 2 (12:36):
I really believe it's about content and you shouldn't worry
about what you're using. I actually use three or four
different cameras. I use them for different reasons. I have
a fugi, I have an icon, you know, I have Alika,
I have a canon for when I want to do
fast repetage movement. But the camera I use all the
(12:56):
time is my camera phone, your iPhone.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
Yeah, I saw you taking a picture.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
Just look, you know, you know why I think somewhere
along the line, I wish I could have just had
a camera built inside, you know, my forehead or something,
so I could just shoot when I don't think about
you've gotten a pair of those yet, No, Oh they're good.
You shouldn't have to think about it. You really shouldn't.
I mean, you should be able to enjoy photographing. You
know what's in front of you? How many pictures do
(13:23):
you have in your phone right now? I mean, I'm
so bad about that. I mean it's like, I go,
I have two hundred thousands. Oh my god, I'm sure,
I know. And I love taking pictures.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
I love well.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
Someone asked me for they want to see some some
photographs of my pond upstate.
Speaker 3 (13:39):
It's like, you know, fifteen thousand pictures come up.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
How do you feel when somebody calls you a portraitist.
Speaker 3 (13:47):
I'm fine with that.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
Yeah, I'm fine with it because it's the best way
to sort of be able to wander and dabble through
many different forms of photography and not worry about it.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
I know I'm not a photojournalist.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
And also I feel really responsible to the portraiture at
this point.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
I mean the subject.
Speaker 3 (14:07):
I mean, this is the subject.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
The fact that we have been doing this for over
fifty years and when you look at our time, it's amazing.
Speaker 3 (14:14):
I was just thinking, I.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
Brought in these pictures of Diane Keaton, you know, to
show you because I hassed a way a couple of
days ago.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
Yeah, she gave so much joy to so many people
in her films.
Speaker 3 (14:27):
But she was you know she.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
I knew her really because I photographed her very like
in the eighties with Woody, not with Woody, but just
she was really an artist and she was a photographer.
Speaker 3 (14:40):
She loved photography, she loved books.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
So when we would work together, it definitely was inspiring
to me to get out of the genre of what
you think is a typical portrait. She always wanted to
sort of hide herself and she would come to the
shoot with ideas, very serious with me, and she did
hide herself in her costumes, didn't she She did, But
(15:07):
I mean she had a great, great style.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
She had a great, great style.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
I remember doing a photograph of her, I think it
was for Vanny Fair and the stylist was in tears
because she wouldn't wear any clothes both because she basically,
how can you dress iron King, she's going to dress herself.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
Of course. Gradon Carter said on my podcast sitting right
where you're sitting, that you are one of the few
people he knows who works harder than I work. But
you do work so hard, and you have worked for
a very very long time at just mastering and perfecting
and enlarging your craft. Where did your drive come from?
Speaker 3 (15:43):
I think I love my work.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
I don't know, it's as simple when you take a
good photograph, it feels so great. And then also this
other idea that when we talked about portraiture, where the
body of work takes over, you know, where you realize
that it's a really interesting And I'm in a unique
position in that respect to look at all of this
work from all this period of time. And in fact,
(16:06):
I'm going to work on like a four volume set
of books next for the archives.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
Where is your archive?
Speaker 3 (16:14):
My archive?
Speaker 2 (16:15):
Actually, I mean I have the I own the copyright
and everything to all my work. But I mean right
now it's still in New York, but it will go
to Luma. Maya Hoffmann, Oh great, Yeah, it's actually comforting
to know that there's a place to house all that work.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
Yeah, Mayah Hoffman is such a visionary too, isn't she.
Speaker 3 (16:36):
She's amazing.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
Yeah. Really, she used to visit her down in a mystique. Yeah,
and then she was building her museum in the south
of France, and what an extraordinary woman.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
She let me do this edit of my early work
from nineteen seventy nineteen eighty three, and we took over
our whole warehouse. It was like a river of photographs.
It was so amazing to get that initial work edited.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
How do you keep your work? I mean, do you
keep prints, do you keep negatives? Do you keep everything?
Speaker 2 (17:05):
Early on we had prints, but now it's all digital.
But I still work in paper. I love to print,
and I'm a big fan of the xerox. I mean,
I love xeroxes. Yeah, I think they're great. You know,
they look great.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
What about just the home printer?
Speaker 3 (17:19):
No, sure, I mean you can get a little better one.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
Yeah. No, I have some good printers now. And I
love printing pictures.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
No, it's glossy paper or someemi glossy paper.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
Yeah. Fun. Totally.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
You can hang those on your wall, you know, just totally.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
I you know, I had incredible refrigerator. When I see
a picture of the girls or something that I really like.
Just print it up and stick it on the refrigerator.
Speaker 3 (17:42):
It's great.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
Is it harder to photograph a famous person, a well
known person, or a unknown person?
Speaker 3 (18:00):
They all come with the different ways to approach.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
Well, you've got John Lennon to undress and curl up.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
Come on, John Lennon addressed, and there he.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
Is, just lying on his side, nuzzled into his lovely wife,
Yoko Ono, and which became one of the most incredibly
famous pictures ever ever ever taken.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
Well, you know, at the time, you know the story
about that photograph where he was killed the same day
the photograph was taken, and I was sent by Rolling Stone,
and Rolling Stone said to me, we don't want to
put John and Yoko on the cover.
Speaker 3 (18:40):
We just want to put John on the cover.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
So I knew, I knew John, and so I said
to John, and he really wanted to put yoga on
the cover.
Speaker 3 (18:47):
I said, okay, well, we're going to have to do
something really weird, really good, you know.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
And we just did a few frames and you know,
we looked at a polaroid and he loved it and
he said, this is our this is us.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
And then he gets shot down in his right in
the front door of the Dakota. That was a very
sad day for so many of us, poor Yoko, and
I mean the whole thing that was a crazy day.
Speaker 3 (19:13):
Again was interesting.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
And now me getting older and us getting older and us,
you know, and just thinking like Diane Keaton, you know,
dying at seventy nine, which that's not a bad life
as a good life, but it's not so old.
Speaker 3 (19:25):
But it's not. It doesn't not. I feel the same way.
I feel it's not.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
So because we're all talking about longevity. Yeah, we're all
talking about healthy aging. We are all talking about what
can we do to prolong our good lives? What are
you doing it? You prolong your life? You look great
by the way.
Speaker 3 (19:43):
I refuse to be lazy.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
I will just get up and go up the stairs
and go get something and bring it back down.
Speaker 3 (19:48):
I just keep moving.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
You worked out all Jamike. You go to the gym,
I know, I don't.
Speaker 3 (19:52):
I can't stand gyms.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
Oh no, yeah, no. I love the outside so well.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
I think that's what Upstate is for for me, is
to get out and walk and we have a pond
and I I literally we just now it's like really cold,
but I swim in it. You know, you came to
swim house up in Maine. Do you remember, Oh yeah, no,
we took care. Yes, you took Roseanne.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
She remembers that I had that giant, giant guest book
that I especially made for the magazine. This is a
book that's like four feet by three feet and on
beautiful and beautiful paper. And Annie Leebu, it's put her
foot on inkpads. And you printed your foot in my book.
Speaker 3 (20:34):
Well, it's easier than having to write something, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
It's your foot, you're and what size foot do you have?
Like a size ten?
Speaker 3 (20:40):
No, it's twelve.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
Oh, a size twelve blue foot in my guest book,
which I am only.
Speaker 3 (20:47):
One foot, just one too.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
You just did one foot. Interesting, I have to come
back and I'm going, yes, you have to come back
and do the other foot. And I'm going to frame
it because I have that book in a very prominent.
Speaker 3 (20:59):
Place, such a great place. And I love Maine.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
Oh I do too, God, I love that place so much.
It is a it's a RESTful place. It's incredible, and
it's a and it's a good place to hike and
to think and to do you know stuff? So you
have to come back to Maine. It was so funny.
So what's what is your preference? Is it the studio
or is it out in the field.
Speaker 3 (21:21):
I don't even have a place to shoot.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
I used to have the most incredible which I you
know that those buildings on twenties.
Speaker 3 (21:26):
I've been into incredible studios.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
And part of letting that all go was I wanted
to force myself to be on location.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
But that was that was your really greatest studio.
Speaker 3 (21:36):
It was great, but I had made the decision when
I sold it.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
I was moving downtown into some houses which I loved,
and I thought it was gonna be in forever.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
But then, I mean, Upstate has really become home now.
It's so interesting.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
I come and see it sometimes.
Speaker 3 (21:50):
Oh I would love for you too, Are you really?
I really would like you swim across the pond? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (21:55):
Whatever, not in the winter. I'm not going to swim.
You connect with your subject, you really do. I mean
you can see it in their faces, you can see
it in their expressions. What makes you so good at that?
Speaker 3 (22:07):
I don't know what I'm doing, quite honestly.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
When I first started this work, the photograph is the
most important.
Speaker 3 (22:13):
Thing to me. Left the people of the dust.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
You know, it didn't matter, it was like But I
think as you get older, I really want to take
a photograph that they like as well. I don't have
any other agenda. I want the subject to like themselves
and see themselves in the photograph, and that interests me.
Speaker 3 (22:32):
You know a great deal.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
Who photographs you? What's your favorite picture of you?
Speaker 3 (22:36):
Maplethorpe took a good picture, he did.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
Well.
Speaker 3 (22:38):
Do you remember Dwayne Michaels.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
Oh, yes, I know Dwayne Michaels.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
And his work is very surreal and you see through
the bodies and things like that.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
He took some pictures of me fashion pictures for Mademoiselle magazine.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
We've known each other a long time, you know, because
do you remember when we met out out on Long
Island in the Hamptons. You were nobody yet, you know,
and if everyone knew you were going somewhere.
Speaker 3 (23:01):
Oh they did, they did, and you knew you were
going somewhere.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
Those early days in East Tampton when I first bought
my house out there. I loved that.
Speaker 3 (23:10):
I loved you. You haven't changed, You really haven't changed.
You are that person.
Speaker 1 (23:14):
I thank you, thank you. I want to be I
want to be the original.
Speaker 3 (23:19):
There you are.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
We were talking about Dwayne Michaels and who photographed me,
because he came to photographing at twenty sixth Street Studio
and he ran around and he took all these pictures
and then he left and then he called me up
and he said, Annie, I forgot to put film in
the camera.
Speaker 3 (23:36):
Oh, come on, I'm not kidding. And it was like
I just laughed so hard.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
You ever forget to do that?
Speaker 3 (23:44):
No, No, that that never happened. What did happen?
Speaker 2 (23:47):
I was once photographing Barbara Streisand in the seventies, and
I had a motor drive camera, and you know, she
didn't have much time, and I ran around the house
and took all these pictures and I kept thinking, this
is really strange.
Speaker 3 (23:59):
This seems like the endless role, you know.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
But what happened was is this brockets got torn in
the motor drive, which you know, you should never use
a motor drive camera. You've got no pictures, And so
I had some, but I didn't, you know, I was
like too embarrassed to ever tell her.
Speaker 3 (24:15):
You can tell if that there's film in a camera.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
Oh, it's something you can feel it. I had to
fire a couple of photographers working on my magazine that
made technical errors like that, which were so bad, and
it said, come back in five years when you learn
how to use a camera. I would say that. And
now some of them are fantastic photographers doing really good work.
And they remember, they remember when I told them to
go away. You have to work with so many image makers. Oh, yes,
(24:42):
you know, but I love that.
Speaker 3 (24:43):
I have learned, but you're directing. You pretty learned telling a.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
Lot about photography, working with great photographers. But it's all
about light. But you're it is light. It is about
especially for.
Speaker 3 (24:55):
Food, I mean, and any actually anything is about light.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
Well, faces to you were so funny because when I
was coming to your house this time, you said, Okay,
what time of day do you want and which light
do you want? Like you know, and I never could
find the light in the house.
Speaker 3 (25:11):
And light is so important to me.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
It really teaches me exactly what you know, I'm going
to work with the light, whatever it is.
Speaker 3 (25:18):
And I couldn't find the light that day. Maybe that
was the problem.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
Maybe it was just a dark day. It was a
dark day.
Speaker 4 (25:24):
Yeah, because I was forcing it to happen. It was
it was the middle of the day, and that the
room where you is a western facing room, and it
would have had much more light later on.
Speaker 3 (25:36):
It was stupid on my part. You should fire me.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
I'm not. I'm never going to fire any.
Speaker 3 (25:41):
They can fire me. I shouldn't be fired. I shouldn't
put put that. How would you like to be remembered? Answer?
Speaker 1 (25:49):
As a documentarian, No, No.
Speaker 3 (25:53):
As a portraitist, well, I'm really proud of the work.
There's no two ways. There's no two ways about that.
Speaker 2 (25:59):
I can actually stand out side of the work and
look at it and go, I just can't believe this
that you see that youth, that kind of insanity of
just you know, working, you know, shooting every single.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
Day, and we're capturing imagery that nobody else would have
ever captured.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
Well, I mean, you know, photography has just an incredible
lineage of great photographers to sort of and be inspired by,
and I feel.
Speaker 3 (26:27):
Like I sort of absorbed them all. I mean like
I ate them up. They were just like so powerful.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
To the depth of your photography is quite amazing. I
mean there's so much in all ages. I mean, you
have been photographing, what you said, fifty years publishing publishing photographs.
That's a long time in a long career, but it's
kind of almost identifiable, which is so incredibly fabulous. I
(26:53):
mean I've worked with like Avid On, I mean, oh
my god, well he was and it was very total
genius and it was more expected it was so it
was so well lit. It's almost all studio, you know,
and nobody was brilliant.
Speaker 2 (27:09):
I mean I walked into that studio, you know, after
he died, he could light with one light in it,
the way he structured the walls and how they be,
and he's.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
Going to put you down in a little hole in
the ground in the studio. Do you know that? I
had to go downstairs into a little square and look
up at him.
Speaker 3 (27:30):
Seriously.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
Yeah, it was so interesting. I paid attention to all
of that and the resulting pictures. And I was not
a top model. I was like a medium model. But
it was so interesting to watch all these guys and
how they.
Speaker 3 (27:45):
Worked and what do you think of photographers?
Speaker 2 (27:47):
Do why?
Speaker 1 (27:49):
I mean, for I have had a very nice relationship
with almost every single photographer I've ever worked with, both
professionally as an editor, and also as a model. I
enjoyed being photographed, and I also enjoy watching somebody photograph
because I like to see.
Speaker 3 (28:05):
I think that is true.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
I think, you know, I think when we have worked,
I mean it's yeah, I really enjoy it. I mean
like you sort of you sort of give yourself over
to the process. I think that's really interesting. I like
a lot of people are still holding on to to themselves.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
But but it's so much fun to watch. And you're
you are busy when you're photographing. I you know, the
last photo shoot, you were busy thinking, thinking, thinking, who
does the retouching on your pictures?
Speaker 2 (28:34):
I have this extraordinary Actually, there's two people in my studio.
One is very kind of old fashioned retoucher, but he'll
take too much away from from a photograph. The other
one is really an artist and I love working with them.
And he's shown me because I don't really know how
to use the computer, and I'll sit behind him with
(28:55):
a little stick and kind of hit him on the
back of his endpoint and direct. It's interesting to vote. Yeah,
do you have the final picture? You make the final picture.
I make the final picture, and then you know, we
have a cover on Vogue this December, and it's definitely
you know, composited, and you'll see your.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
Vanity Fair covers, those multiple people covers, which I always
loved so much because you had what was the greatest
number of people you ever had in one photograph.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
Oh definitely. I would kind of fight that all the time.
I wanted to go back to single, single people or whatever.
But basically, you know, you know who taught me how
to shoot like those large groups is David Hockney. When
you look at his work and you saw that like
it was done in pieces, I started to shoot it
in pieces. And that's how how we talked.
Speaker 1 (29:46):
Did you see the thing that he did of the
Grand Canyon, that giant picture that was in the lou
in Paris, I mean I've seen it, It's made it
six hundred different photographs.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
He's incredible and he made me. He brought me down down.
I mean talking about people inspired me. It got me
down to my knees when I first saw all that
collage work and I realized that's how the I sees
that is, you know, and you want to throw away
the camera because the camera was keeping you within the
rectangle or the square or whatever format. You were using,
(30:19):
and I was taught to use the rectangle. You know,
Cardi bra Zan or Robert Frank they composed within that rectangle.
Speaker 3 (30:25):
They you know, you that's how you shot.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
And then Hockney said throw it away. You know, it's
like it's and and he really you know, to this day,
you know, if I can't fit something in the rectangle,
I'll just move left and right and and put it together.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
And put it together.
Speaker 3 (30:41):
It's really not a problem.
Speaker 1 (30:42):
I love that. And I think with good editing now
you can do that too.
Speaker 3 (30:45):
Oh.
Speaker 2 (30:46):
Absolutely, And there's no reason why not. It's not it's
not real life. I'm not doing journalism. No reason why doing.
Speaker 1 (30:55):
That's a you can't pat you are painting with a
picture with pictures.
Speaker 3 (30:59):
Totally.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
Yeah, it is incredible. So do you have favorite pictures
that you've taken? I mean, can you have three favorite
pictures that we could think about?
Speaker 2 (31:08):
Okay, it's an old, old story. It's in the first
Women's Book. I photographed my mother for the Women's Book.
She was nervous, she was in her she was my age,
you know, middle seventies. I photographed her up state, you know,
in open shade, and she was nervous, and she says
she was afraid of looking old. And you know, she
(31:30):
grew up her her generation. You know that everyone was
supposed to smile for photographs. So I didn't trust the
smile completely and I wanted to show I didn't really
want her to smile, so but I didn't say that.
But so the photograph is un is probably my favorite photograph.
When you look at the photograph of her, it's as
(31:51):
if the camera's not there.
Speaker 3 (31:53):
She's just looking at me.
Speaker 2 (31:55):
There's no camera. That is another thing to obtain when
you take a photograph, as you don't want to feel
the camera. You want to just go right into what
the content, what's in.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
I encourage everyone to get the two volume set of
Women by Annie Lebowitz. It is a beautiful book. I
think it's ninety nine dollars in ninety No, No, it's
fifty dollars a book, you know. I that's an expensive
it's beautifully printed. No, Annie, congratulations, it's a it's a
(32:27):
beautiful accomplishment. And it just what it does is just
extend your importance so into the far far future, because
you have been not only a student, you've been a
learner and a teacher and now an icon of photography.
Thank you so much.
Speaker 3 (32:45):
Thank you Mark I, thank you this is It wasn't
so hard.
Speaker 1 (32:47):
At it wasn't getting better. See
Host
Martha Stewart
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