--- title: 10 Questions for Annie Leibovitz | TIME description: Her celebrity portraits for magazines from Rolling Stone to Vogue have become cultural icons. Annie Leibovitz answers reader questions here canonical: https://time.com/video/2YbC7WXG/ og:title: 10 Questions for Annie Leibovitz og:description: Her celebrity portraits for magazines from Rolling Stone to Vogue have become cultural icons. Annie Leibovitz answers reader questions here og:url: https://time.com/video/2YbC7WXG/ og:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/2YbC7WXG/poster.jpg?width=720 og:type: video.other twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: 10 Questions for Annie Leibovitz twitter:description: Her celebrity portraits for magazines from Rolling Stone to Vogue have become cultural icons. Annie Leibovitz answers reader questions here twitter:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/2YbC7WXG/poster.jpg?width=720 --- # 10 Questions for Annie Leibovitz > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: 10 Questions for Annie Leibovitz [Watch (HLS stream): 10 Questions for Annie Leibovitz](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/2YbC7WXG.m3u8) (5:51)  _Published 2008-11-26. Her celebrity portraits for magazines from Rolling Stone to Vogue have become cultural icons. Annie Leibovitz answers reader questions here_ --- Jul 27, 2023 1:03 PM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [FBI Director James Comey Declines to Answer Questions About Roger Stone](/video/5E5g0oKB/) ### FBI Director James Comey Declines to Answer Questions About Roger Stone [Grammys 2015: Hozier and Annie Lennox](/video/vvixr3Y0/) ### Grammys 2015: Hozier and Annie Lennox [Annie Trailer](/video/9tro36Oh/) ### Annie Trailer --- ## Transcript >> Hi, we're here with TIME. com and today's 10- Question victim is Annie Leibovitz. Our first question is from Francesca Viola from the Bronx, New York and she asks, what for you is the interest in continuing to photograph celebrity portrait during a time when many celebrities have their photographs plastered all over the place? >> I don't feel like a part of that. I feel like-- You know, I feel like I came in into early place, you know, when you know working for Rolling Stone is sort of built, you know, who I am and I think I've learned at a very young age that, you know, what I did mattered. >> So, it must be difficult to get your models to trust during a shoot. Who has been the most difficult to handle? >> You know, it's usually not about the person, that's the cool part of the shoot. It's usually that it's-- the weather is bad or it's a bad hair day, bad-- you know, bad hairdresser, or you know-- But that being said, I-- it's something that's difficult subjects in entertainment, in show business, or people who have been in the show business for a very long time. I think they have no sense of reality, you know, it's just-- You know, like Sammy Davis Jr. or even Michael Jackson, you know that-- you know, when they start very young everything is pretty distorted. >> Uh huh. But hey you're not necessarily easy to work for and would you agree with the statement? But then if you point out that he only asked because he's trying to understand the temperament of the very successful. >> I've heard that too actually that I'm-- I'm not that easy to work for. The only-- The only-- And you know, I've been doing this, you know, for a long time and it took me a long time to learn how to work with people. You know, I came from a place where I was working by myself and working with just my camera and myself and, you know, as I started to use, you know, assistance when people helping me, I couldn't understand why I couldn't see exactly what I saw at the time I exactly saw and I would be very frustrated. It took me years to-- to learn how to work with people and I think I'm, you know, basically a nice person and then when I work, you know, I don't know who that person is. It's just-- It gets-- You know, it just gets very-- It's all in the details, you know. I mean, everything becomes, you know, very, very important so-- From Paul Vegas in Hampton, Ontario, though, which is how did you deal with the whole Miley Cyrus debacle 'cause a lot of people thought that is another-- that your feeling should, you know, should've been different. So-- >> Well, I really do separate myself in some way, you know, when I go to work, but you know Miley-- the Miley picture is a beautiful, strong, you know, simple picture. When we took all kinds of pictures that day and-- and it turns out to be one of the strongest pictures. You know, I think-- I think, you know, it's actually sort of innocent on some level. But I feel like it-- you know, she loved the pictures and she loved taken that picture and she was ready to take that picture and it's just, you know, her audience, you know, wasn't ready to take that picture, wasn't ready for that picture. And the thing that I-- it was just different. The picture, you know, it was really different of her. I've said this now in another place, but basically I think that if there was any mistake made is probably that she shouldn't pose for Vanity Fair. You know, that's-- that's my reason, take on it. But, you know, I think she got very nervous after they had the reaction and she sort of, you know, backtracked in a lot of ways and, you know, I felt bad for her. I really felt bad for her. I think she really did enjoy the shoot. I still, you know, probably believe in the picture I don't think it was fine. You know, it was like taken out of context. >> Gina Lexbrick of Houston who asks, " You know, as a fan and fellow photographer, she'd like to know what you see in that aha moment that people took about? Is it the subject, the composition or something that's very exclusive to your eyes ?" >> For example, John and Yoko, you know, I really took a few frames. I mean, you knew it was good. I mean, it was-- you haven't seen anything like it before and it was beautiful and it had form and strength and it was simple and it told a story. So, surely, no one is not working. You know, it just doesn't feel, you know, great. It just-- And over the years, I've learned to just say, " Okay, we just move on ." You know, it just trying to-- it doesn't get better, keep-- You know, when keep trying to work on something and I rather just come back to it or come back another day. >> Have you ever been so frustrated with the photoshoot that you shut it down completely? >> No. If anything-- If something goes wrong with the photoshoot, you know, it's my fault. I really feel it's up to me. It's my responsibility. I'm supposed to make this thing work, you know, like, you know-- And there's like a lot of psychology involved in it and I-- you know, you have to-- you have to, you know, make it work, you know, whatever is going wrong. If I don't get a good picture, I don't blame my subject, I blame me. ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"10 Questions for Annie Leibovitz","description":"Her celebrity portraits for magazines from Rolling Stone to Vogue have become cultural icons. 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