For more than half a century, Annie Leibovitz has been taking culture-defining photographs. Her portraits of politicians, performers, athletes, business people, and royalty make up a gallery of our time, imprinted on our collective consciousness by both the singularity of their subjects and Leibovitz’s inimitable style.
This book serves as a catalog to an installation at the LUMA Foundation in Arles, France, Annie Leibovitz: The Early Years, 1970–1983 that returns to Leibovitz’s origins. Features Leibovitz’s reportage-like photo stories for Rolling Stone, which she began working for when she was still a student, record such heady political, cultural, and counter-cultural developments as the Vietnam War protests, the launch of Apollo 17, the presidential campaign of 1972, Richard Nixon’s resignation in 1974, and the Rolling Stones on tour in 1975.
Throughout the book, the portraits and reportage are linked to images of cars, driving, and even a series on California highway patrolmen. In many ways, it’s a celebration of life on the road―the frenetic rhythms, the chance encounters, the meditative opportunities. And with its rich archival aspects, it is also a tribute to an earlier time and a young photographer enmeshed in a culture that was itself in transition.
