Received this book as a gift and what an extraordinary gift it is, in my mind primarily for what it reveals of the private life that dwells (for us onlookers) in the shadow of the public.
Annie Leibovitz has always struck me as a studiously private person, despite the very high public profile of her work. The occasional glimpse of her in a
Vanity Fair outtake seemed a rare peek at the artist behind the camera. Though I must admit that other than enjoying her photographs in VF - and, earlier and less knowingly, in
Rolling Stone - I never was a Leibovitz watcher or seeker, and thus having not saturated my consciousness with details of her life and career through the copious physical research I was inclined to do pre-Internet (or, for that matter, the exceedingly easier armchair research that is facilitated by the Internet), I perhaps merely had the illusion that she kept hidden behind the camera... an illusion because I didn't really know but only guessed.
Well, I don't think my illusion was incorrect. Leibovitz has been criticized, albeit primarily in a roundabout fashion, for not being more public/out about her relationship with Susan Sontag. The words "partner," "lover," etc. do not appear in her book nor in most reviews of the book. In fact - and I may be discrediting myself here as even a recreational observer of popular culture - I personally was not aware of Leibovitz and Sontag's relationship - had not an inkling, had never been conscious that they had
any connection to one another - until I came across an advance piece on this book that mentioned it in terms so subtle that I had to read it twice to get it. This was a tone, I believe, set by two women who did not feel the need to announce themselves, who, quite to the contrary, probably strove to preserve a modicum of privacy in two very public lives that melded together to produce a third, joint, gargantuan one precisely by not explicating themselves on this particular level.
But the book is a gorgeous and wrenching homage to their relationship. Sontag's intellectual curiosity - the liveliness of her mind - and her physical death more or less frame the collection of photographs, and Leibovitz's introductory essay refers to "Susan" more times, and it may be argued, more tenderly, than to anyone else, including her parents who are her other frequent subjects here. The significance is meant to be inferred - this, it is not difficult to deduce, is how Leibovitz handles the private side of her life: Let the pictures do the talking.
To behold these photographs as they are presented - with no preconceived notions of what lies between the book's covers (and I would argue that this element of surprise that swept me off my feet may only have been possible because the book was, literally, an unexpected gift) - is to experience something at once awesome and sacred. What a life, this photographer's life.
Sidebar: Apart from the most personal revelations this book contains, there are as well some interesting professional ones. The photos of celebrity subjects Leibovitz chose to include obviously are some of her favorites. Perusing them and imagining what ratio of aesthetic merit to subject's personality (and, indeed, personal relationship to the photographer) warranted their inclusion is as gratifying an escape as reading
Vanity Fair.Footnote: Here is a nice piece in which Leibovitz comments on her relationship with Sontag.
