Essay on Annie Leibovitz and James Nachtwey

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.

Annie Leibovitz - Mikhail Baryshnikov and Rob Besserer, Cumberland Island, Georgia, 1990.

Annie Leibovitz has a magic power to make celebrities into her slave without offending them.

Annie Leibovitz - Arnold Schwarzengger, Sun Valley, Idaho, 1997.

Annie Leibovitz tells Arnold Schwarzenegger, "Cold, pain is short term, but the great shot is permanent!"

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.

James Nachtwey - Haiti Earthquake, Jan 2010.
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

Japanese People

I do not even know what kind of characteristic people in my nation has. I just thought the characteristics totally depend on person to person, so we can not really generalize it. But, here I met a Japanese girl who knows about her own nation people’s characteristic and had deep thought about how people from outside of Japan think about it.

This is one of my closest Japanese friends, Marina Ikemoto. Marina is the first Kansai Gaidai student whom I got to know, even before I come to Japan. We became to know each other because of each other’s friends’ introduction. One of my friend who went to Finland as an exchange student met a Kansai Gaidai student there and the Kansai Gaidai students introduced Marina to me. What a small world, all linked together!

Her nickname is Mochu which her friends made out from her last name and here I can surely see Japanese people’s tendency to make words short, easy to call. These days she said that she is busy keep on doing job hunting, since this year is her last year in the university. She has been participating in many kinds of company seminars and has already send résumé to several companies. I am same age with her, and about this point, she really makes me to look back at myself now. Marina loves ko ta chu, sushi and the touching songs of 東方神起 (Dong-Bang-Shin-Gi: A Korean idol group). Including Marina, I have seen many Japanese girls who love 東方神起, and interestingly, most of them said that they not only like the song or appearance of the group, but also like about the close membership, relationship that the group keeps on having while they were working in Japan for five years. Not like playboy style, but the reliable (まじめ) side of the group may have touched Japanese girls’ heart.

Marina has very mature and emotional personality, but also having weak mind and shyness. She gets especially shy when she talks with other Japanese people whom she does not know very well. She said that she becomes more careful with Japanese people than foreigners. Even though there are some different behaviors or actions made while communicating with foreigners, it can be understood. The concept of ‘cultural difference’ makes the behavior understandable. However, if those different behaviors were made in front of Japanese people, they would definitely see him or her strangely. Marina also told me one situation that she experienced while she was in Australia as an exchange student. In Australia, she met a Korean boy who hates Japanese because he thinks that Japanese people have two sided face which brings confusion to the listener. Marina also agreed that Japanese people do have politeness and smile all the time, but those may not really come out from their true heart. According to her, speaking directly seems to be very rude between Japanese people, and even between close friends. Ever since there is some notion that advice can be given from higher status person to lower status person, Marina told me that friends, who are in same status should be very careful about giving advice to each other unless it can be regarded very rude.

In the end of conversation, I asked her what she thinks about those kinds of Japanese culture, and she said it is sometimes uncomfortable even for her, but she also sees good side of this culture especially in business world as there would be less argument without any direct talking.

First picture is borrowed from this website:

http://www.dreamstime.com/question-mark-box-thumb1317187.jpg

My Neighborhood Hirakata

Compare to the crowded, noise city back in my home country, Hirakata seems to be a small and quite town, where nothing special seems to happen or exist. Even though it is the street that I always pass through, I never got a real chance to pay attention to the things and people in Hirakata. Just busy rushing to school by bike everyday; I miss all the little details happening around me. But, thanks to this week’s assignment, I actually could have a chance to carefully look around and pay attention to my neighborhood. I even tried to listen carefully to the sounds that are being produced in my neighborhood.

This is Seminar House 4 where I am living now and the next picture is the street and houses in front of my dormitory. In the first picture, the spatial ground next to Kansai Gaidai University sign board is the place where number 12 buses finally stop and very firstly take on passengers. I also use this bus often and from my room, I can hear the bus speaker saying “This is the bus which goes to Hirakata station…” in Japanese and then without checking the bus time schedule I can get ready and get on the bus! Whenever bus stops and people get off, I can hear people’s cheerful voices saying “Arigato gozaimasu!” toward the kind bus driver.

This is picture of a shop (I do not know what kind of shop is) and beverage, tobacco vending machine located opposite side of my house. And the second picture is the upper hillside way which leads me to 中央 圖書館 (Central library) and also to East gate of our school. On the way to school, following this uphill, I can always see several guards who always speak out cheering words, “Ohayo!” with smiles on their face. Unfortunately, I missed a chance to take a picture of them, but one time I watched my Japanese friend talking to the guard. It looked like very funny and joyful conversation that I can not easily imagine having with guards in my home town or home school.

Even though it is a small village, I think Japanese villages mostly have parks within their village and most houses are also raising so many flowerpots in front of their yards and also .over their walls. This gave me an idea that Japanese people like to live close by nature and live harmoniously with nature. While I was walking around my dorm on Sunday afternoon, I found two parks near my dorm: one in opposite side of my dorm and the other one back side of my dorm. And this is the picture of the park which is in opposite side of my dorm. Since it was peaceful Sunday, unlike weekdays, there were many people, especially parents and children, people and dogs, taking rest and playing inside the park. Just like they got on a picnic, in the small park with the wonderful sunny weather, everyone seemed so happy. There is also a café inside the park and they sell really nice cakes which can only be found in this café.

Early impressions of Japan

It has been about 2 weeks since the time I arrived and I know that this is very short time to talk enough about Japan, but it was still enough time for me to get some cultural shocks. At first, I was surprised by the bicycle riding culture in Japan. I did not know so many Japanese people use bicycle to travel one place to another and even when going for shopping at department store. It was quite distracting and uncomfortable, when a bike comes through between my friends and me. However, after having bought my own bike, I can not now imagine going to school or grocery shopping without it and I feel also good for being eco-friendly. In addition, all the bicycle registration procedure that I had to go through for the safety of my bike once more impressed me. Since bike registration does not exist in my country and bicycle theft can happen easily. I even lost my bike 3 times. It was amazing to know the fact that in Japan, as long as my bike is registered, it can be still found when it is stolen.

During the orientation week, through participating all the orientation programs and all the paper works that I had to work out in every session, I could also feel that in Japan, all the works or services has to be perfectly, completely done. Not only from school offices, but also from the small bike shop that I bought my bike and small restaurants, I could see the owners, workers doing their best to serve best service in complete way. It seems that ‘finishing off something loosely’ does not exist.