Quotes By Annie Leibovitz

When I started working for Rolling Stone, I became very interested in journalism and thought maybe that's what I was doing, but it wasn't.

When I say I want to photograph someone, what it really means is that I'd like to know them. Anyone I know I photograph.

It's a heavy weight, the camera. Now we have modern and lightweight, small plastic cameras, but in the '70s they were heavy metal.

Coming tight was boring to me, just the face... it didn't have enough information.

A very subtle difference can make the picture or not.

At my Rolling Stones' tour, the camera was a protection. I used it in a Zen way.

There must be a reason why photographers are not very good at verbal communication. I think we get lazy.

There are still so many places on our planet that remain unexplored. I'd love to one day peel back the mystery and understand them.

I was scared to do anything in the studio because it felt so claustrophobic. I wanted to be somewhere where things could happen and the subject wasn't just looking back at you.

I feel a responsibility to my backyard. I want it to be taken care of and protected.

I didn't want to let women down. One of the stereotypes I see breaking is the idea of aging and older women not being beautiful.

I feel very proud of the work from the '80s because it is very bright and colorful.

No one ever thought Clint Eastwood was funny, but he was.

My hope is that we continue to nurture the places that we love, but that we also look outside our immediate worlds.

I sometimes find the surface interesting. To say that the mark of a good portrait is whether you get them or get the soul - I don't think this is possible all of the time.

I am impressed with what happens when someone stays in the same place and you took the same picture over and over and it would be different, every single frame.

I admired the work of photographers like Beaton, Penn, and Avedon as much as I respected the grittier photographers such as Robert Frank. But in the same way that I had to find my own way of reportage, I had to find my own form of glamour.

If it makes you cry, it goes in the show.

I'm more interested in being good than being famous.

I shoot a little bit, maybe two rolls, medium format, which is 20 pictures, and if it's not working, I change the position.

Computer photography won't be photography as we know it. I think photography will always be chemical.

When you are on assignment, film is the least expensive thing in a very practical sense. Your time, the person's time, turns out to be the most valuable thing.

It's hard to watch something go on and be talking at the same time.

I still need the camera because it is the only reason anyone is talking to me.

The work which is manipulated looks a little boring to me. I think life is pretty strange anyway. It is wooo, wooo, wooo!

I wish that all of nature's magnificence, the emotion of the land, the living energy of place could be photographed.

I don't think there is anything wrong with white space. I don't think it's a problem to have a blank wall.

Everyone keeps asking you for pictures, and after a while you get tired of that. I always say, They are in the archives.

Lennon was very helpful. What he taught me seems completely obvious: he expected people to treat each other well.

Sometimes I enjoy just photographing the surface because I think it can be as revealing as going to the heart of the matter.