Discovering her passion

Born amid the vibrant hues of autumn, Leibovitz entered the world on October 2, 1949, in the picturesque town of Waterbury, Connecticut. As the third of six siblings, her lively family life was shaped by her father, Sam, an Air Force lieutenant colonel, and her mother, Marilyn, a modern dance instructor. With her father’s various duty assignments, the family found themselves frequently relocating, exposing Annie to an array of cultures and landscapes. The seeds of artistic passion were sown within Annie, nourished by her mother’s deep connection to dance, music, and painting, and their nomadic lifestyle would later become a catalyst for her artistry – as her father’s posting in the Philippines during the Vietnam War led young Leibovitz to capture her first images with a camera. 

Upon her return to the United States, the aspiring artist enrolled at the San Francisco Art Institute to study painting, with dreams of becoming an art teacher. During her first photography workshop at the institute, she found herself enthralled by the works of Robert Frank and Henri Cartier-Bresson and, from this, changed tact, switching in her academic focus to photography. Over the subsequent years, she refined her skills while working a variety of jobs, including a soul-searching sojourn at a kibbutz in Amir, Israel, in 1969.

A swift rise

Annie’s career trajectory exploded in 1970 when Rolling Stone magazine recognised her talent and hired her as a staff photographer. Her meteoric rise within the magazine’s ranks led her to become one of its most in-demand photographers, shaping the publication’s visual identity. A veritable chameleon with her camera, she captured the raw essence of music legends, including Bob Marley, Mick Jagger, and Keith Richards, while also immortalising the faces of renowned celebrities, politicians, and artists from all walks of life.

One of her most iconic photographs, taken for Rolling Stone, features a naked John Lennon wrapped around Yoko Ono, taken mere hours before his tragic assassination. This haunting image, now synonymous with the end of an era, was later named by the American Society of Magazine Editors as the top magazine cover of the past 40 years.

Throughout her tenure at Rolling Stone, Leibovitz developed a distinctive style, blending the rawness of reportage with the polish of portraiture. Her technical prowess and keen eye for detail, along with her ability to connect with her subjects, enabled her to capture the essence of the zeitgeist. 

Annie’s gift for encapsulating the spirit of her subjects was evident in her intimate portrait of the Rolling Stones during their 1975 tour. Her, she spent weeks on the road with the band, gaining unprecedented access to their lives both on and off stage, resulting in a series of images that would come to define the Stones’ image during their heyday.