Annie Leibovitz : a photographers life 1990-2005

Wonderful exhibition of photographs taken by Annie Leibovitz at the National Portrait Gallery.

The exhibition focuses on pictures taken since 1990 and blends her commercial, journalistic and personal work. I loved the way many of the enlargements were still shown almost as contact prints. This gave then a false frame and therefore gave them a real Renaissance feeling.

The pictures documenting the deaths of her father and her friend Susan Sontag were heart rending. I couldn’t decide is she used the camera to involve herself or detract herself but there was a sense of a writer compulsion to experience these events creatively.

I loved the pictures of her mother with her leg in the air! There was a real sense of vibrancy.

Almost side many of the classic celebrity portraits was a pair of boards of contact prints in chronological order matching the commercial and personal work. These showed two linked artistic and emotional journeys.

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Evening Standard

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