ANNIE LEIBOVITZ

She is "a photographer of celebrities who has herself become a celebrity." For the past 25 years, no photographer has delivered more photographs of the people we most want to see than has Annie Leibovitz. Her pictures are recognizable for their bright colors, intense lighting, and above all, for unique and surprising poses. In magazine spreads and advertising campaigns, Leibovitz has demonstrated that she is a master of projecting the popular culture of our time.

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Anna-Lou Leibovitz was born in Westbury, Connecticut. Her father, Sam Leibovitz, was an Air Force lieutenant colonel and because of his career, the family moved often during Leibovitz's childhood. Her mother, Marilyn Leibovitz, was a modern-dance instructor and the chief force in raising Annie and her five siblings. Leibovitz remembers taking many dance classes from her mother and other teachers. She credits this for her later interest in photographing dancers.

During high school Leibovitz played guitar and wrote music and was the head of the school folksinging club. She also developed an interest in painting and attended the San Francisco Art Institute, beginning in 1967. She considered a career as a painting instructor. During a vacation from school, Leibovitz visited her family, then living in the Philippines. She and her mother took a trip to Japan, where she bought a camera and began taking pictures.

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When she returned to school, Leibovitz enrolled in a night class in photography. "I was totally seduced by the wonderment of it all," she told a writer for Art News. "To see something that afternoon and have it materialize before your eyes that same day. There was a real immediacy to it. I lived in the darkroom."