Annie Leibovitz’ Perceptions of Yoko Ono, John Lennon, Lindsay Lohan, Patti Smith, & Emma Thompson.
I have yet to find more beautiful pictures of Yoko Ono, John Lennon, Lindsay Lohan, Patti Smith, or Emma Thompson. There are other equally beautiful pictures, but Leibovitz sometimes sees people as beautiful as I have ever seen them.
Most people are familiar with this photograph. What I did not learn until researching this post was, according to Wikipedia, this photo was “taken in 1980 the morning before Lennon’s death.”
(Click on images to view them individually.)
© All rights reserved for all the artworks by Annie Leibovitz.
The following information is from Wikipedia, so as with everything you read, read it with a grain of salt:
“Neither Leibovitz nor (Susan) Sontag had ever previously publicly disclosed whether the relationship was familial, a friendship, or romantic in nature. However, when Leibovitz was interviewed for her 2006 book A Photographer’s Life: 1990-2005, she said the book told a number of stories, and that “with Susan, it was a love story.”
In the preface to the new book, she speaks in greater detail about her romantic/intellectual relationship with Sontag, briefly discussing a book they were working on together and describes how assembling her new book was part of the grieving process after Sontag’s death.
In an October 17, 2006 interview with Tom Ashbrook on NPR’s On Point, Leibovitz acknowledged that she and the late Sontag were romantically involved. Ashbrook asked Leibovitz directly why she kept using vague terms like “companion” to describe Sontag, instead of more specific ones like “partner” or “lover”. Leibovitz finally said that “lover” was fine with her. She later repeated the assertion in stating to the San Francisco Chronicle: “Call us ‘lovers’. I like ‘lovers.’ You know, ‘lovers’ sounds romantic. I mean, I want to be perfectly clear. I love Susan.”
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And let me be perfectly clear, I love Annie Leibovitz and her artistry. Regardless of Ms. Leibovitz’ sexual preferences, or maybe in large part because of her ability to see diverse sexuality, she can see others’ uncommon beauties. And she has made those qualities visible to anyone who is willing to see them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annie_Leibovitz
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patti_Smith
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emma_Thompson
If you would like to see more artworks, showing Annie Leibovitz’ perceptions of women, here is one more post:
http://sexualityinart.wordpress.com/2007/05/04/annie-leibovitz-perceptions-of-women/
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I love that picture of Emma Thompson. It’s beautiful and introspective. There’s an Annie Leibovitz exhibit somewhere in NYC right now, and in the posters they have a photo of Sharon Stone. In the photo, she’s wearing this incredibly long, flowy dress in front of a ballroom setting… it’s just a really great photograph. This post made me think of it!
An addendum - apparently the photograph is of Nicole Kidman, not Sharon Stone.
mr lennon eyes are shut ,most pictures of him are with eyes full and open,& or with mouth in motion, on walls & bridges, he has a smile that is saying somthing that is done with pictures, like in his art,4/24/07 Thomas
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We think it’s a pretty novel idea, and we’re certainly excited to see some of the submissions (they will be available at http:// http://www.christinaked.com).
Thanks for your consideration,
Daniel
While I am a wikipedia fan,“taken in 1980 the morning before Lennon’s death,”doesn’t sound quite right. I think that the interview for Rolling Stone may have been the day of his assasination, but was the photo?
I doubt the wikipedia assertion only because I also think that John Lennon commented on the photograph saying that it was great because summed up his relationship with Ono perfectly.
So unless Lebowitz also took a instant polariod too it is difficult to see how Lennon could have commented on the photo if it were taken on the morning of his death because the photograph would have not yet been processed (unless he was just commenting on the pose).
The pose says a lot. Lennon is like a foetus or at least a infant, stuck to, almost suckling, and anyway dependent upon Ono. Ono has her arms raised above her head - almost blase’ of Lennon’s affection - and her eyes slightly open (I think) while Lennon’s are shut. This suggest something along the lines of rather absolute trust on the part of Lennon, and “looking out for us both” on the part of Ono.
Lennon was parted from his mother at an early age and raised by his maternal aunt. His mother lived not so far away but Lennon did not know that at first, presuming that the infrequency of her visits was because his mother lived a long way away.
In fact, after the disappearance of Lennon’s father (a ‘listless’ sailor) his mother found another man, and just did not feel able to keep a child from a previous marriage with her new man.
I think that Lennon became aware of this truth (that his mother had chosen a relationship with a new man over himself) before his mother’s death.
I think perhaps that Lennon’s mother died in sight of Lennon in a automotive accident (hit by a bus??) as she left after one of her visits.
These circumstances, it seems to me, may have produced in Lennon a far bigger than usual oedipus complex in the Lacanian sense.
Freud argued that male children naturally want to have sex with their mothers. This seems silly to me, living as I do in Japan where children share the parental bed. (My son does not try to hump his mother.)
Lacan (an obscurantist twerp at times I think, but also brilliant) argued that (Western) upbringing results in the formation of the oedipus complex. That is to say that because (Western) mothers reject their infants and (mixing in Richard Schweder’s “Who sleeps by whom”
go and sleep in another room, infants gain the impression that the ‘thing that daddy can do’ must be wonderful, and wish that they could do it too. This, Lacan argued, results in the oedipal/sexual desire.
In the ‘normal’ Western household this is predominantly a result of bedroom arrangements, but in Lennon’s case his mother opted for a sexual relationship to the extent of not just another bedroom but living completely apart, even to the point of death.
It is no wonder then that early Lennon was super Western and, echoing the pan-sexual-theorist Freud, was fond of saying “It’s all dick (according to the movie “Back Beat” at least).”
Indeed, the Beatles, with their songs of sexual love, chanted the Western mantra big-time. “All you need is love.” Or perhaps, all you need is a, or many, coital relationships.
But then John Lennon found Yoko Ono who, Japanese as she is, did not idolise sexual love. Even after all the bed-ins and the Ono arranged affair still loved him. This was the mother he always wanted. She was his rock, she looked out for the both of them, his trust was eyes wide shut.
Personally, I thin that Ono was a smidgeon upwardly mobile and don’t believe in pure love myself. But I can appreciate Lennon’s point of view.
Here is love. A beautiful photo.
Tim
Hi im a massive fan of annies work especially the one of john lennon and yoko i have based my AS photography coursework on it and have come out with a great grade at the end of it
Thank
Terri
SIA: Congratulations on your good grade, and more importantly on your quality artworks. Emulating the artistic priorities of Annie Leibovitz is a worthy pursuit.
hello! if you want to know how paul is doing hes is fab but he is getting a devorce but except that we having a rocking time! johns mother was hit by an off-duty policeman with no license . he was only charged three thousand british money.($6,000 u.s) and he lost his rank from major to officer. just wanted to tell you that! ok? keep listening to those beatles songs!
Me encanta la foto de Lindsay, pero creo que sería interesante que alguien sacara una en la que ella se muestre como verdaderemente es… que no esté posando.
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Loosely translated: I love the picture of Lindsay, but I think it would be interesting if someone pulled one in which she is shown as more casual, that is not posing.