The Annie Leibovitz Fact
To tell you the truth I didn’t know much about Annie Leibovitz until the media and most recently the New York Magazine got a hold of her financial problems. Apparently I was impressed with her photography all along, having seen the covers of Vanity Fair and other ad campaigns.
Long story short Ms. Leibovitz is a very successful photographer who has not managed her finances as well as her work. Her story reveals a simple fact and a rather questionable conflict. The simple fact: Not all of us are good financiers and most of us are blessed with only one great ability. For Ms. Leibovitz that is photography. The rather questionable conflict: Once we reach a certain amount of fame and credibility we tend to forget about the concept of money and how easily dispensable it is (One is exactly the same as millions. It is so hard to keep and so easy to spend.). Over-consumed with fame and over-assured by credibility we try to find solitude in the private part of our lives, usually through luxury and the things we have been yearning for the most.
When Sarah (Leibovitz’s daughter) started eating solid food, a rigorous journaling policy was instituted, in which every bite and bowel movement was to be committed to an unlined black notebook purchased from the Swedish stationer Ordning & Reda. Kellum regularly ordered replacement books from Stockholm so that the journaling could easily continue from one book to another. Once, when an order got lost in customs, Leibovitz insisted on having two notebooks sent from Stockholm via a special type of courier service called “quicking.” It was essentially like buying a seat for a parcel on the next plane. The shipping cost alone came to $800.
The effects of fame and credibility are more visible in the case of an artist who excels in a solitary world of imagination. The true artist works to create a vision, not to earn his/her way in life. Acumen, insight and support are what an artist yearns for. Approval is appreciated. Fame and money are only the by-products of a natural cycle. In reality, one can’t and shouldn’t be able to value a completely subjective work he/she has put his/her heart and soul into. A photo for Leibovitz might be valued at millions by her, but it will be much less for Conde Nast, which has commissioned it.
Accardi was stunned by the number of work prints Leibovitz would order, and apparently so was Condé Nast. After Accardi printed 300 oversize work prints of a Roseanne Barr shoot and billed Vanity Fair some $15,000, he received a letter from Graydon Carter himself, informing him that after this job, he’d be paid for no more than 50 such prints. “Like I was going to tell Annie that?” Accardi says with a laugh. “She would’ve boxed my ears.”
It is clear that Annie Leibovitz is going through rough times because her abstract world of vision and art finally clashed with the sharp realities of our capitalist world. It is suffice to say that she is only human and it could have happened and will happen to anyone as long as this rather questionable conflict exists in our universe. Let’s just hope that we will always have loved ones around us who will poke us and ring the alarm bells (hopefully before it is too late) once we lose focus and rationality.
If you have time I recommend you read the New York Magazine article “How Could This Happen to Annie Leibovitz” at http://nymag.com/fashion/09/fall/58346/