Annie Leibovitz and James Nachtwey are both photographers who make their living by taking pictures with cameras but what they see through lens is totally different from each other. Annie Leibovitz is an American portrait photographer and James Nachtwey is a War photographer. While Leibovitz sees the whole life in general through her camera lens, Nachtwey’s camera is more focused on capturing images of wars, conflicts and critical social issues.
The motivation, which made both of them to hold camera and start shooting pictures was not the same and I guess that is why they see different things through the same camera lens. Annie Leibovitz studied painting before she become interested in taking pictures and with her enthusiastic personality, she developed her skill and started her work in Rolling Stone. Her job is to portrait celebrities. Leibovitz’s works that she made by working with famous celebrities and shooting their pictures seem to be very beautiful, attractive, unique, dynamic and creative. Those modifiers would not have been applied if there wasn’t her inspiration and carefully considered ideas. She creates greatness out of normal, plain situation which could have been really boring. After watching all the process of works that she had gone through with Julia Roberts, George Clooney, Bette Midler, Patti Smith, John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Demi Moore, Whoopi Goldberg and so on, I could sense that she has some magic power that makes people comfortable and then brings out their inner characteristics, personalities, humor, irony but also insecurities. Bette, John, Demi, Whoopi and all the other people could have said “no” to Leibovitz’s difficult demands, but they were all willing to give out their essence to her.
On the other hand, James Nachtwey studied art history and political science and then he was evoked by images of the Vietnam War, which made him to choose this dangerous path War photographer as a job. His job is to picture the reality at battle zone and let the rest of the world to know, be aware of the incident. In the battle zone, conflict zone, he captures cruelty, sadness, pain and poverty into pictures. People in his picture also do not say “no” to him, as he shows sign of respect and make the subject comfortable. Besides, for them, having pictures taken by Nachtwey is way to give their voice out to the world. Nachtwey, he himself, also seems to have strong belief that he can convince the world with his photos as form of communication and the photos become powerful antidote to war.
Earthqueak, Pray, International Aid...
Pushing the limit, Being close enough!
He says, “If your pictures are not good enough, you are not close enough.” While it can be said that Leibovitz tries to get close to the individuals, what Nachtwey tries to do is getting closest to the event, incident and the victims of the incidents.
In the way of pushing the limit, both photographers seem to have common point. When shooting, Leiovitz push her limits and demands bigger and bigger things to celebrities, which seem to be almost impossible to make, but she eventually achieve what she wants. In the case of Nachtwey, actually, there seems to be no limit. He just jumps into battleground and starts to shoot and then comes out with best shots. In addition to the point of pushing the limits, the two photographers also seems to know how to control their emotion and how to handle the situation or event that they care about. When Susan Sontag died, Leibovitz did not turn away from the reality, but took picture of the dead body and showed her own way of love and respect to her loving one. Nachtwey, also, in front of countless dead bodies and crying woman who lost her son in crisis, he just took picture without being emotionally stirred. He just expresses all his sadness and emotions through his photos.
Annie Leibovitz - Susan Sontag, Leaving Seattle, November 15, 2004.
I wonder what kind of mind she had when she took this picture.
James Nachtwey
It is my hobby to collect magazines and journals like ‘Times’ or ‘Newsweek’. Whenever I read them, I can see the pictures of movie posters or news about crisis and massacres. I have never thought about those images so seriously. I just took the images for granted or sometimes ignored since I had no idea how those pictures were being taken. But, now I know, so, sorry for taking the photographers' passion and inspirations as a granted! I now know that their great works are living well inside the magazines and journals!
Reference
1st picture is from
http://www.npg.org.uk:8080/annieleibovitz/exhib.htm
2nd picture is from
http://www.iphotocentral.com/andrewsmith/search/detail.php/256/Annie+Leibovitz/0/AL-1405
3rd picture is from
http://viiphoto.wg.picturemaxx.com/webgate/index.php
4th picture
http://fotophil.wordpress.com/2008/05/09/what-we-do-to-get-the-shot/#comments
5th picture
http://slog.thestranger.com/2006/10/sides_of_susan_sonta_1
6th picture
http://www.oneworldinschools.cz/index2en.php?id=286
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