'If you have any questions, don't call me,' a singular interview with Annie Leibovitz

After spending a decade or so as a daily newspaper reporter in a major market, you can get a bit spoiled. Not in terms of the paycheck, heaven knows. Rather, in terms of the amazing individuals one gets the opportunity to interview.

The first celebrity I posed a question to in an interview was poet and writer Maya Angelou. I went on to interview a range of cultural contributors and well-known personalities from the first woman secretary of state Madeline Albright to comedic actor Jack Black.

As a member of the lifestyle section of our newspaper, based in the suburbs a good hour away from San Francisco, it could become tedious to drag one's self to the city, for instance, every time the stars came calling to plug their latest films. Generally, the movie critic or TV writer would cover these stories, but when their plates got too full or schedule conflicts arose, other staff writers got an option to rub elbows with Hollywood elite.

The artist personally signed a copy for me.

While it seems ludicrous now, there were times when no one would jump at the chance. I distinctly recall not raising my hand when the opportunity came along to interview Mel Gibson -- back before he got the crazies and was still considered pretty cool. I didn't need another assignment, taking two hours out of my workday was too exhausting, I hadn't seen his recent work, blah, blah, blah. Who knows what the excuse was? I may have this wrong, but I seem to remember a similar blasé response to the prospect of interviewing actor Viggo Mortensen.

Happily, I took my beat as an art writer seriously and seized every interesting opportunity, including
the offer of a one-on-one tour by photographer Annie Leibovitz of an exhibition of her work on display at a San Francisco photography museum. In my memory of the interview, I am not over-awed by the meeting. To her credit, Leibovitz -- who was very pregnant at the time --was sufficiently down-to-earth. She was so gracious, in fact, she offered to personally sign a copy of the show's catalog for me. Her parting words amused me and stay with me to this day.

Looking up from the large format catalog, she set down her pen and slid the book toward me, saying "If you have any questions ..." A noticeable pause followed before she added the unexpected conclusion: ''don't call me." I'm sure I chuckled, thanked her again for her time and went off to write the following story on deadline.



Published May 21, 2001, Oakland Tribune/ANG Newspapers
NOTE: All photos by Annie Leibovitz

Through Annie's Lens

By Monique Beeler
STAFF WRITER

Truth be told, Annie Leibovitz wasn't crazy about the
idea of photographing a bunch of women for a project to be
called, appropriately, ``Women.''

Sure, she's shot scads of portraits of female figures
during a career spanning more than 30 years. In the early
1970s with Rolling Stone magazine, she took close-ups of folks
like Grace Slick and Diana Ross. More recent images, such as a
nude and pregnant Demi Moore taken for Vanity Fair, also won
the artist acclaim for originality and risk-taking.

But capturing the essence of an entire sex seemed

Hillary Rodham Clinton/The White House, Washington D.C. (By Annie Leibovitz)

beyond the range even of her lens.

``It's like going out to photograph the ocean,'' says Leibovitz, eyes squinting in contemplation behind her trademark tortoiseshell glasses.

On the wall behind her hang almost-large-as-life
reproductions of portraits she originally shot for the 1999 coffee-table book, ``Women.'' An exhibition by the same name opened
earlier this month at the Ansel Adams Center for Photography in San
Francisco. The traveling show runs through July 15, then heads to
Seattle.

``I was looking for a project to do in America. It was actually Susan Sontag who suggested I do `Women,''' Leibovitz says.

Serena and Venus Williams/Tennis players (By Annie Leibovitz)

Leibovitz initially rejected the idea.

After photographing a series of showgirls _ before and after they donned garish makeup, sequins and feathers _ for a New Yorker magazine assignment, Leibovitz's enthusiasm for the Women project skyrocketed.

``I did the showgirls and I got very excited about it and said, `There's something to this,''' she says.

``There's another agenda,'' she adds. ``It's for the women.''

Around 70 large-scale photographs in the exhibit introduce us to icons and workers, artists and academics.

Hillary Rodham Clinton, Serena and Venus Williams and Gloria Steinem garner space in ``Women.'' Bay Area figures represented include, chef Alice Waters, Hewlett-Packard chief executive officer Carly Fiorina and AIDS organization executive director Rebecca Denison.

In an introductory statement printed on one wall of the Ansel Adams Center, writer Susan Sontag suggests that capturing images of women on film amounts to a global political statement.

Gwyneth Paltrow and Blythe Danner/Actresses

In some regions of the world, Sontag tells us, taking photographs of women is forbidden.

``In a few countries, where men have been mobilized for a veritable war against women, women scarcely appear at all,'' Sontag writes.

Taken in this context, Leibovitz's images of a muscular Marion Jones in motion or a war correspondent flanked by her camerawomen constitute acts of assertiveness and of vindication for the years when women were relegated to the shadows.

Armed with a camera, Leibovitz commits to film the
range of female experience in the United States, from sad-eyed street woman to self-assured astronaut.

``The more I photographed, (I realized) it was about individuality,'' Leibovitz says.

Railing against mainstream American images that depict women as ornamental or as sex objects, Leibovitz showcases each woman for who she is and for what she has contributed, be she mother, Pulitzer Prize-winning author or Olympic gold-medalist.

``Most of the work was done for this project specifically,'' Leibovitz explains. ``And some of the work came from my past files.''

Osceola McCarty/Washerwoman, philanthropist

True to her reputation as photographer-to-the-stars,
Leibovitz sprinkles plenty of celebrity images into the show, which got its start in 1999 as a millennium exhibition sponsored by Vogue magazine.

Visitors to the show encounter rap artist Lil' Kim in a see-through knit top and bleached-blonde curls; former model Jerry Hall suckling her infant son, Gabriel Jagger; and actress Blythe Danner embracing her daughter, actress Gwyneth Paltrow.

It is access to the upper strata of society, including two Supreme Court Justices and three former first ladies, mixed with a sense of responsibility to those with less status, from Las Vegas showgirls to victims of domestic violence, that raises the collection's impact.

Individual portraits of a three-star general in a skirt or a farmer hoeing her crops may not wow on their own. Collectively, however, the photos form a satisfying whole.

``Good portraits are deceptively simplistic,'' says Nora Kabat, curator for the Ansel Adams Center. ``(Leibovitz) brings out the personality of the subject.''

Leibovitz affirms that it was rarely an effortless process.

When she visited Osceola McCarty, a lifelong washerwoman who saved then donated $150,000 to form a university scholarship, Leibovitz arrived to find her subject wearing a suit and a wig.
Wandering around McCarty's Mississippi home, Leibovitz

Eileen Collins/Space Shuttle Commander 

spied an old house dress hanging on a hook.

``I asked if she wears this,'' Leibovitz says. ``She
said, `I wear it every day.'''

At Leibovitz's request, the white-haired McCarty agreed to slip back into her daily costume. Such subtle details add honesty to Leibovitz's photographs.

``A lot of the women are looking straight at you whether it's with an astronaut's helmet, a machine gun or a piece of chalk (in their hands), they have a presence,'' Kabat says.

For the exhibition, Leibovitz enhanced her subjects'
presence by printing the photographs using a large format
technique. The largest photos measure 6-feet by-8 feet.

``I was a little nervous about it, but I wanted to go
big,'' Leibovitz says. ``I like the idea of going bigger than
life and giving them an iconic presence.''