Annie/James

Recently in Visual Anthropology of Japan, we watched two documentaries on the work of two very different photographers – Annie Liebovitz and James Nachtwey.  Listening to my classmates after both films had been screened, and perusing past blog entries responding to the same pairing of photographers, I get the sense that people feel that Nachtwey’s work is somehow more valuable, carries more meaning. But just because a photograph depicts the horrific or shocking doesn’t mean that they automatically mean more – life isn’t given ultimate meaning by war, or poverty, or injustice.  At least, I like to hope that this is not where the meaning in life comes from.

James Nachtwey: Hutu death-camp survivor, Rwanda, 1994 - an iconic image of the genocide.

Annie Liebovitz: Michael Jordan, baskestball star, a different kind of icon.

Annie Liebovitz also gets some flack for being ‘commercial.’  But James Nachtwey, too, makes a living at what he does – and, arguably, his photography is even more exploitative, relying on the misery and suffering and anger and mostly negative emotions of his subjects, whereas Liebowitz’ subjects have some voice in how they are represented, and many of them are actively choosing to be represented by her (Miley Cyrus may beg to differ, but that is beyond the scope of this post…).

Annie Leibovitz: John Lennon and Yoko Ono, vulnerable and selfless love, hours before his death.

Celebrity is, especially in America, a major part of our culture and shared cultural history – on one side of the Vietnam war, we have the Stones and the Beatles and the counter-culture that sprang up at home, and on the other, we have the war itself, in Vietnam, which was a major impetus for Nachtwy's decision to be a war photographer - and both deserve a place in visual anthropology.  Both celebrity and war define the lives of those of Liebovitz and Nachtwey photograph, and both are necessary to understanding our cultural history.

James Nachtwey: Bosnia, mourning a soldier in a football-field burial ground.

So, even though Liebowitz and Nachtwey have produced vastly different volumes of work, when I think about what makes them each successful as visual anthropologists (even if they do not necessarily self-identify, I think their photographs ARE anthropology), there is so much that they have in common.  Some lessons from James-先生 and Annie-先生:

1) Photograph people.  When it comes to visual anthropology, this seems pretty requisite, but it's a practice of both photographers that is good to keep in mind as we try to visualize Japaneseness.  At the same time, don't presume - Annie says "something that wouldn't seem like [is] anything, [is] something"(Leibovitz, 2008) - the little and the epic are both a part of anthropology.


2) Get permission for your photographs.  Life Through a Lens shows Leibovitz establishing good rapport with her subjects, putting them at ease, showing them their photographs after shooting, while in War Photographer, Nachtwey describes the sort of implicit permission that war imparts to the photographer - "it's simply impossible to photograph moments such as those without the complicity of the people I’m photographing; without the fact that they welcomed me, that they accepted me, that they wanted me to be there"(Frei, 2001).  For the most part, I agree, but the misgivings that Eliza raises about such implicit permission are quite valid.


3) Find or create narrative inside the frame.

Liebovitz says that each photograph should be a "story that is one sentence long"(Leibovitz, 2008).

For Nachtwey, photography needs to be "a form of communication"(Frei, 2001).

4) Engage in participant observation.

Leibovitz spent months touring with the Rolling Stones.

Nachtwey also spent an extended period living with this family.

5) Edit your work.  Nachtwey, as depicted in the documentary, is unrelenting in the development and editing process, and his high standards are something that any visual anthropologist who is taking photographs could learn from.  Life Through a Lens likewise depicts Leibovitz's process of learning the necessity and methodology of editing her work once she started working at Vanity Fair.


6) Rinse, repeat…aka, never stop.  Both photographers are constantly taking pictures, whether on the job or in their daily lives.  Life is inherently athropological, and most often visual, so you never know when visual anthropology is going to happen.

James Nachtwey.

Ultimately, the power of each photographer’s work should be assessed – each is a master in their own field, and should be respected (or critiqued, or revered, or questioned) as such.  As consumers of their images, we have very different needs met – our curiosity, admiration, love, obsession are fueled and satisfied by Liebowitz’s celebrity portraiture, and our pathos, empathy, social consciousness, sense of injustice are aroused and invoked by Nachtwey’s powerful images of war and suffering.  Our view of the world would be incomplete without either.

Annie Leibovitz.

But as students of their methods, we can see that they are each applying the same general principles of powerful photography to their respective worlds: never ceasing to photograph, permission-granted, boldly, the stories of who people are.  Annie Liebovitz and James Nachtwey teach us to be constant visual anthropologists.

Leibovitz, Barbara (Director). (2008). Annie leibovitz: life through a lens [Television series episode].  American Masters. PBS.

Frei, Christian (Director). (2001). War Photographer [Feature-length documentary].