When Leibovitz came to the United States she got a job at the Rolling Stone magazine just as a regular cast photographer. However, in 1973 she was bumped up by the publisher and became the chief photographer for the magazine, where her work helped shape the magazine into what it has become today. She is very well known for her photograph of John Lennon and Yoko Ono from 1980. After spending some time looking at her work, she really inspires me. I feel like one of my biggest challenges when taking pictures of people is putting them in an environment of their own. In her photographs it seems like she doesn't have any problem putting people in their own environment. And even if she doesn't place the subject in a environment of their own, she has the ability to tell a story in all her images. I really admire her work because she is doing something I wish I could do with all of my portraits. Out of all of her photographs, the one I saw that I liked the most was her famous photograph of John Lennon and Yoko Ono. After reading about this image I learned that at first both Lennon and Ono planned on being naked, however Leibovitz asked Ono to keep all her dark clothes on. The way she photographed them is amazing. She made it look as is Ono is just a giant cold, black, void and Lennon is gripping onto her for dear life. The only part of Ono's body you can see is her face and I don't think that just happened on accident, something that powerful had to have been planned. Plus, she took this photograph only 5 hours before he was shot and killed. It's absolutely amazing and will forever be a famous image.
Chris Verene
Verene is a very well-known American photographer that has been taking pictures since the mid 1990's. Chris is known for his Camera Club performance that started his Self-Esteem Salon and also his monograph about the Galesburg family. To this day, Verene's collections are still displayed in many New York studios and he continues to add more photographs to them as the years go by. What I enjoy about his work, is his ability to control the flash. At first it looks like his photos are a bit too bright, but all his images are the exact same, showing that he knows what he's doing and he's controlling that extra brightness. I also admire his ability to document a family's or community's spirits just through his images. He doesn't sugar coat the American life in his photographs; he shows the nitty gritty of things not exactly everyone wants to see, but I think that is what makes his photographs so powerful. One of my favorite photographs of his is this image of the basement. I love how he took such a trashy and unpleasant place to photograph, and he turned it into a beautiful photograph. That's something I want to be able to do, so seeing images like this really inspire me. Another thing I really like about his photographs is how he puts little captions with them and writes about them. I always like to read what he has to say about them. It makes me a bit more interested.
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