Annie Leibovitz/Swatch

Annie Leibovitz’s career as one of the most famous American photographer’s began in 1970 when she gave some of her work to Rolling Stone magazine. She graduated a year later from the San Francisco Art Institute with a bachelor of fine arts. She subsequently continued her studies with photographer Ralph Gibson, but also acted as the chief photographer for Rolling Stone magazine. Later she worked for Life, Vogue, Esquire, Time, Newsweek and Vanity Fair. In the early 1990s she founded the Annie Leibovitz Studio in New York City.
Leibovitz is best known for her capturing the persona of her subject in their portrait. She did this by using the person’s entire body in the frame, and usually captured them engaged in physical action. Characteristically outrageous, or dramatic, her work has attracted many celebrity clients including her photography from a tour with the Rolling Stones, and the photograph of nude John Lennon with his fully clothed wife, Yoko Ono. She has photographed everyone from the Dalai Lama and The Blues Brothers, to the First Ladies and Las Vegas showgirls. Her other work included fashion and advertising photography. In 1996, the book “Olympic Portraits” was published. It was the outcome of two-year long project, where Leibovitz photographed Olympic athletes in practice.
Leibovitz has had her work exhibited internationally, but in 1991 she was given the extreme honor of a retrospective by the National Portrait Gallery (Washington, D.C.) that subsequently toured the United States, Europe, and Asia. Her awards include the American Society of Magazine Photographers, Photographer of the Year Award (1984), the ASMP Innovation in Photography Award (1987), the Clio Award, the Campaign of the Decade Award from Advertising Age magazine (1987), and the Infinity Award for applied photography from the International Center for Photography (1990).