I was watching this video last night on Annie Leibovitz, which was great btw, and it reminded me of Boxing Day.
I stood in Chapters/Indigo, doing the math on the 30% all hardcover sale on that latest release from Annie the Two Volume collection called Women.
I then realized I already had four of her books and I didn’t need more from Annie, as much as I am a fan.
I wrote about the hardship of owning photo books when I moved recently (substack says NONE of you read that, thanks)
Moving and Books
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OCTOBER 8, 2025
As the mover heaved the next in a long line of heavy boxes, he grunted, “What do you have in here? Encyclopedias?”
Now that I have them all set up in a book case. I really shouldn’t be buying any more. So I will do my best to sit down and actually look at the books I have vs buying more, starting with everyone’s fave or fave to hate: Annie Leibovitz.
I can’t tell you when I started to realize I liked Annie’s work. I think of the earliest examples was back in 1978 when I subscribed to Rolling Stone and Patti Smith was on the cover
At the time I hadn’t discovered photography, but I remember staring at the cover thinking “ What is going on here? Did she start the fire?”
I didn’t know Annie had taken that pic until much later but I enjoy her work at Rolling Stone, and then by the time I was studying photography her American Express card campaign really made her mark, and from there it was onward and upward.
I didn’t really own her books till recently. But her work was of course all over the first big photo book I bought The Rolling Stone photographs book. (I‘ll cover that another time)
The first BIG Annie book I bought was in the collection of portraits 2006-2016. You can watch the video above where she does a great way of explaining how Annie’s love of Henri Cartier-Bresson shows up in this era of environmental portraits. It’s also when she moved to digital and then really embraced a more painterly style in lighting and posing and of course a more extreme colour grading.
The criticisms toward her style started after this. I will say even a coffee table book brings out the subtle beauty of the images that can not be conveyed online on a iPhone where most of the discourse on her abilities seem to take place. These examples I included I upped the contrast on my phone otherwise you’d not see them. Also seeing images from this era as massive prints, in person, you have even more appreciation for them.
On to what is probably the least popular of her books but the most personal Pilgrimage
It was very telling that I bought this book months after its release at a deeply discounted price. It’s her personal project that she pursued after the death of Susan Sontag It’s essentially a bunch of places and things connected to many famous people that Annie admires. She says this at the very end:
My list of places turned out to be arbitrary. Some of them have always meant something to me and some of them I went to out of curiosity and some of them were along a path I stumbled onto. But all of them made an impression. From the beginning, when I watched my children stand mesmerized over Niagara Falls, this project was an exercise in renewal. Looking at history provided a way of going forward. I always knew that the Spiral Jetty would be the last picture. It’s both an end and a beginning.
Annie’s stories about these key figures of history and how she searched them out are constantly interrupted by images that don’t relate to the text. It’s a maddening layout. I’ve seen enough behind the scenes footage and know how important sequencing shows and books are to her so I have no idea what happened. The whole project would have been a tough sell to the publisher, and was probably constricted by budget. I suggest you find it the library and read the text but the images are nothing to write home about. Glorified snaps of artifacts and places she used her fame to gain access to. 1
Before I dive into the other books, an aside; the reaction when Annie taught a Masterclass. The link actually has a honest balanced review on her Masterclass, but the general feedback from the photo community was disappointment. Photography’s move to digital coincided with the move toward “creator culture”. What was once a mythological combination of the sciences with a healthy dose of artistry quickly became a digital commodity that people could replicate easily. A myriad of forums and channels and discussions full of “I have this hockey team/rockband/family to photograph how do I do THIS” (with an example attached) and all sorts of mansplaining to help achieve the task. You simply replicated the steps give and voila! you made art!
The masterclass revealed that Annie’s vision springs from a unique place, defined by research, deep thinking and all the choices made based on her intuition. Thats why you can’t replicate her completely. You can come close but that’s it. You are farther ahead applying the same methodology she uses and let your own vision emerge.
If the book like Pilgrimage does anything it confirms the depth of her character in applying this technique. You don’t even know half the authors in Pilgrimage she obsesses about and it shows in your work.
I was going to start talking about “At Work” as the best one to own if you are photographer. But honestly WHO buys photobooks? Other photographers mostly. Maybe graphic designers, but the general public honest buy these do they? I’d love to be wrong.
Long time fans will find some of the stories in At Work familiar, but there is still something to glean from these stories as she add little details or asides or reals her thought process during some of these shoots that you simply cannot get from a 3 min BTS video done by Vanity Fair or Vogue
Definitely worth buying and I’d argue you should buy it instead of the Masterclass if you want to learn about her process. I just leafed through it and stopped at one chapter and was instantly drawn in. Definitely great re-read-ablity. I LOVED the appendix in the back showing the images in the question as they were originally used layouts. That’s important. Annie created these images to tell stories but in print. She is definitely one of the greats of the golden era of magazines. These layouts show that!
The last book and the most recent purchase was Wonderland.
It’s a collection of the work she’s done for Fashion magazines, primarily Vogue and is probably one of the best books to show case her talent. The heroic efforts made, the production values, the stories told in images, this book seems to have it all.
I had forgotten I immediately ordered the book upon its release and purchased a signed copy. It’s a really great collection of images only she could have done, and probably the one I would recommend the most.
The book was published in 2021 it’s success and the show of the same name, firmly established Annie’s legendary status. And that’s that, but not fast…
These past few years, Annie has become under fire on the way she photographs black women. THAT issue is beyond the scope of this post and is certainly not something I am qualified to discuss. The ONLY thing I will say, is you may not like some of her artistic choices, like lighting, but they have context beyond the subjects of colour. going through these books provides that context.
I will post with this clip that lives rent free my head. Law Roach is a respected fashion stylist, here they are interviewed by a content creator
who had already made up her mind on Annie. Listen to how Law Roach talks about working with Annie and how important it was to work with Annie.
To her credit the same creator discussed Annie’s work a few months after this clip and Emily Keegin does a great job explaining Annie’s compositional techniques
Hope you enjoyed this look at Annie in my bookshelf. I promise NOT every post will be this long! For me, at 38 years in to this profession, Annie Leibovitz has provided some of the most inspiring work, and I am true fan.