Annie Leibovitz: “I wish it had more meaning.”
A recent article [Essentially Annie By Josh Getlin, Los Angeles Times, October 11, 2006] comments on Leibovitz’ preparation for her new book, a mix of her personal and celebrity shots: “A Photographer’s Life: 1990-2005.”
“On one wall of a barn in upstate New York, she had pinned shots from her magazine assignments - celebrity portraits that have become icons of American pop culture and have made her one of the world’s best-known photographers. On another wall were more personal pictures, including stark images taken two years ago, when her father and her longtime friend, the writer and intellectual Susan Sontag, both lay dying.
“’I was just so overwhelmed by what I was finding in the personal work, because this is who I am,’ said Leibovitz, who spent last year sorting through the pictures.
“The work for Vanity Fair magazine and other publications seemed troublingly formal and less intimate, she said, adding: ‘I could barely look at the assignment wall.’ She’s proud of this work, Leibovitz hastened to add. But, she said ruefully, she wished it ‘had more meaning. Had more substance.’
“Beginning with her photos for Rolling Stone in the 1970s, Leibovitz has produced some of the most memorable images in recent history: a naked John Lennon curled around Yoko Ono, taken hours before he was killed; a naked and very pregnant Demi Moore staring boldly into the camera; Whoopi Goldberg in a tub filled with milk; and most recently, the much ballyhooed photo of Suri Cruise, with her parents, Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, on the cover of Vanity Fair.”
Psychologist and creativity coach Eric Maisel, PhD comments in his article Making Meaning that the ongoing search and challenge of meaning-making “is work, but it is the loving work of self-creation. It is the choice we make about how we intend to live our life.”
And in his book The Van Gogh Blues, Maisel notes, “Creators have trouble maintaining meaning. Creating is one of the ways they endeavor to maintain meaning. In the act of creation, they lay a veneer of meaning over meaninglessness and sometimes produce work that helps others maintain meaning.”
He warns that “not creating is depressing because creators are not making meaning when they are not creating.”
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