Comparing Annie Leibovitz and James Nachtwey

Annie Leibovitz and James Nachtwey are both highly talented photographers, famous for their unique and moving photographic styles. Leibovitz is mainly a portrait photographer, and often spends a great deal of time consulting with her subject and arranging the perfect shot. Nachtwey is a war photographer, who has hardly enough time to aim his camera before his subject has moved. However, their strategies are not as different as they first appear. Both of them are artists and have a message they want to convey to their audience, and they use similar methods to achieve this goal.

Leibovitz often spends hours preparing for a shoot, manipulating the lighting, costumes, composition, décor etc to get the look she wants. Her photos do not always look like reality as we know it, but they show us something about reality that we might otherwise have missed. Something about the subject that, despite being at least partially invisible, is an integral part of the subject's character and gives us a deeper understanding of the subject. In order to have so much depth in her photos, she must first get to know her subject and learn who they are and how they want to appear. She spends a great deal of time working with her subjects and thinking about how to set up a shot that will illuminate something about them. Her photos range from simple portraits of members of her family to elaborate scenes with costumes and many people, but she shows the same dedication to each photo and says "I don't have two lives. This is one life, and the personal pictures and the assignment work are all part of it" (quoted from pbs.org).

Annie Leibovitz's Mom by Annie Leibovitz (photo borrowed from iwant.on.ca)

The Ladies of LA by Annie Leibovitz (photo borrowed from vanityfair.com)

Nachtwey also photographs a wide range of subjects, but his photos all have a similar theme. They are all about war, sickness, poverty and suffering. He cannot prepare for a shoot because his subjects are not there with the intention of being photographed. Often the action is fast paced and unpredictable, making it impossible to plan the next shot. His goal is to give a voice to the people he photographs in hopes that he can somehow ease their suffering and, because of this, he says that "It's not so much that I want my pictures to be looked upon as art objects as it is a form of communication" (quoted from imdb.com). But that does not mean he does not use the same skills that Leibovitz uses. In order to communicate what he wants to communicate, he must be in the middle of the action and to do this he must gain the trust of the people around him in the same way that Leibovitz must. If the people around him did not trust him, he would not be able to photograph such intimate moments of people's lives, but because his subjects trust him, and feel he might give them a voice they would not otherwise have, he is able to photograph events he would not otherwise be able to photograph, such as this one:

Mourning a Soldier in Bosnia, James Nachtwey (photo borrowed from jamesnachtwey.com)

And, like other artists such as Leibovitz, Nachtwey often makes use of framing and composition to convey the mood of his photos. Like in this one, where the child is very small and viewed from above to convey loneliness and vulnerability.

Orphan in Romania, James Nachtwey (photo borrowed from jamesnachtwey.com)

Overall, whether Nachtwey admits it or not, I think his works are just as much art as the works of Leibovitz or any other artist, and their methods are not all that different, despite the different circumstances. Both Nachtwey and Leibovitz learn as much as they can about their subject so that they can take a more truthful photograph, and they both know that trust is an important part of getting a good picture. There are definitely other things that could be learned from these two photographers, but I think the most important attribute that they share is their ability to earn the trust of their subjects, and use that to create more meaningful photos.

Portrait

I met りさ (Risa) for the first time last weekend in 広島 (Hiroshima). She speaks some English and is patient with my clumsy Japanese, so we were able to communicate fairly well.

When asked what kind of person she thinks she is, りさ's response was that her friends tell her she is まじめ (serious), and that she likes to think about all kinds of things, even everyday things. She was interested when I talked about American Culture, and seems to like hearing about other countries as well. She says she plans to go to Sweden, where she will study the education system.

I told her I wanted to let her decide how she was portrayed in the photos but she wasn't really sure how she wanted to look. We talked about it, and she eventually decided on a thoughtful look for one of the pictures, but I may have influenced that decision a little by mentioning it as an option.

I asked her to look out the window and think about something but I don't know if she really was thinking about anything when I took it.

Before taking this picture, I took one of her looking thoughtful in her favorite study spot on campus. When she said she liked it, I thought I heard something strange in her voice, but I assumed she meant it and I liked it too. I was going to post it, but when I wanted to show the picture to りさ’s friends, she stopped me in a way that made it clear to me she did not actually like how the picture represented her, so I did not used it.

She wanted the other picture to be a happy picture because she is “really enjoying her life” and really likes that she can meet people from all over the world at Kansai Gaidai. Unfortunately, getting her to look happy without looking posed was next to impossible. She kept posing and smiling too big every time I raised my camera. I did eventually get a picture that looks like the smile I saw when she was having a good time in 広島, despite her strong reaction to my camera.

She is actually listening to a friend asking her what makes her happy in this picture, which helped her smile look more natural I think.

I listened carefully to her response when she told me she liked the two photos I ended up using, and both times she sounded like she meant it and let me show the picture to her friends, so I think she was happy with the combination, but I also think I influenced her choice of how she should look by the questions I asked, and our limited ability communicate may also have effected how I portrayed her because there were a few times when I could not understand what she was saying and she didn't know how to say it in English. If I had known more Japanese, or asked different questions, these pictures might be very different.

Neighborhood 田口

It's hard for an outsider to know much about a neighborhood, even if they happen to live there. Not being familiar with how Japanese neighborhoods are marked, I did not even know the name of my new neighborhood until I asked my host mother about it. She told me that the neighborhood is called 田口 (Taguchi), which I now realize should have been obvious given the fact that there are signs saying just that on almost every street corner in the area.

This one is on the corner of the street I now live on. I have passed by it every day since I got here but somehow didn't realize what it meant. There are so many signs scattered all over Hirakata that it's hard to pay attention to them all, and though I remember looking at this one and wondering what it meant, there were always other signs for me to wonder about so I never paid particular notice to it, until I found out from my host mother that 田口 is the name of my new neighborhood.

While I was talking to my host mother, I also asked her about the rice fields I have seen around 田口 and all over Hirakata. There are a good number of them and -- though they are not large for rice fields -- they take up quite a bit of space in such a compact city.

She seemed a little surprised that I would ask, but told me all about how much work goes into taking care of rice plants and how they grow for 6 months and must have the correct amount of water the entire time. It was hard to tell if she was impressed by the rice growers or thought they were foolish as she told me that she could never take care of rice because it is too much work.

When I asked if they grow the rice to sell it, my host mother nodded, but then immediately started telling me about how rice is very precious and that's why they work so hard to take care of it. She told me that rice is very important to Japanese people, and that long ago they would always eat all the rice they were given, and leave no rice in their bowls. Maybe that's not strictly true, but it does show something about how my host mother sees rice. I don't know if the people who actually grow the rice feel that way, but I think in some way my host mother thinks it is important to keep growing rice in her neighborhood, not for the money, or so they can eat it but because rice is "very precious."