Liebowitz Promotes New Book

The photographer made famous for taking the last pictures of John Lennon came to Harvard Square's Wordsworth Bookstore yesterday as part of a national tour to promote her new collection of portraits, Women.

Artist Annie Leibovitz--who earned fame in the 1970s for her work for the then-fledging Rolling Stone--signed copies of her book and answered questions from a crowd that overflowed the bottom floor of the shop.

Leibovitz's art has infused American media over the past 30 years, appearing most recently in the American Express advertising campaign, in addition to the covers of Vogue, Vanity Fair and The New Yorker.

Her newest collection of photographs, most of which have "nothing more in common than that their subjects are women," captures American womanhood through a range of both ordinary and extraordinary females.

In the question-and-answer setting, Leibovitz said Women started out in 1996 as a follow-up to Leibovitz's book on the Atlanta Olympics. She said the theme and inspiration came from author Susan Sontag, who wrote the essay preface to the book.

Initially, Leibovitz said, she found the theme "frightening, like trying to capture the ocean."

She said she tried to photograph the women as she imagined them to look. While working in Las Vegas for the New Yorker special issue on women, Leibovitz said she called a few showgirls to her studio for a shot.

She said she still remembers her shock upon seeing the women who the night before had appeared "like they were in armor," now unrecognizable in their ordinary dress, looking undistinguishable from "schoolteachers."

Leibovitz took double photos of the showgirls--shots that ended up in the book and established the method she used to piece together this body of 200 portraits.

Asked by the audience how she decided whom to photograph, Leibovitz said "it all came down to reading The New York Times." She said she tracked down people she read about in the newspaper and sought to photograph them.

Aside from music stars, actresses and politicians such as Cameron Diaz, Elizabeth Taylor and Hilary Clinton, the book includes images of coal miners, rappers, AIDS activists and prostitutes.

According to the photographer, these portraits were "stronger" than her magazine shots--mostly because she was freed from the need to flatter her subjects and sell magazines.

And in some cases, Leibovitz said, her ideas conflicted with the model's. She cited the example of Yoko Ono, who Leibovitz thought could take a "strong" head shot, under hard light, with enlarged details. To Leibovitz's surprise, Ono was dissatisfied with the final product and had to be appeased with a softer portrait.

The book includes a wide variety of pictures, from nature to studio shots and from black-and-white to color.

Some members of the audience questioned why so many of the book's models are shown being serious.

While Leibovitz denied any intention in this respect, she discussed the circumstances surrounding the making of the book--many of which contributed to the tone.

Leibovitz said she was profoundly influenced by Sontag's chemotherapy sessions, a time during which she said Sontag was "obsessed with death."