Annie Leibovitz is an American photographer and she is my hero! I've loved her since I came across her studying photography, years back! She's just one of those photographers who stuck with me. I'll try and keep this post to a respectable length as I could probably just gush about her for hours!
Annie was born Annie-Lou Leibovitz in 1949 and... honestly, I cannot tell you the amount of incredible images this woman has created!
Most notably, she photographed John Lennon and Yoko Ono on the day Lennon died. Ono wasn't meant to be in the photoshoot, but Lennon had insisted; him agreeing to Leibovitz's request for them to be naked, while Ono refused. This is still one of the defining shots of her career, and was so poignant, having been published after Lennon's death.
Annie Leibovitz sold her first photograph when she was 21 years old - to Rolling Stone magazine, when, just a year later, she was named Chief Photographer and stayed there for 10 years. During her time as a Staff Photographer for the magazine, she went on tour with the Rolling Stones and documented their Tour of the Americas '75.
In 1991, Leibovitz was only the second living photographer, and the first ever woman to hold an exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in London.
She has photographed countless celebrities, won numerous awards and has, most recently, travelled with a personal exhibition entitled Women, where she held talks accompanying the show around the world.
She shoots for Vanity Fair, has photographed Queen Elizabeth II and has produced a series of 'real-world' Disney images. She also shot the 2016 Pirelli calendar, with a marked shift in the context, from sexually attractive women, to powerful women of note.
As I said, I could go on and on. Safe to say that, Leibovitz has forged an incredible career, photographing some of the world's most powerful people, while keeping her roots in her personal work; the work she loves most.