Being a huge Johnny Depp fan I was quite excited to see an image of him appear during Friday’s discourse lesson. The image was taken by Annie Leibovitz, a photographer renown for her beautiful images of the famous including The Rolling Stones, The Queen and a range of actors and actresses.
Leibovitz researches her work well and also uses a lot of equipment whilst taking her images on location. With the pictures of the Queen, she had many ideas some of which were not allowed because the Queen decided against them. The image of her outside is an example of this where Leibovitz had to create this post shooting. She regularly creates a relationship with her subjects and later goes back to shoot. I think this is shown in her images as the sitter seems so relaxed and it is almost natural for them to be doing what they are in the shot.
The image of Johnny Depp is him in a bed, half naked with a cigarette. For someone who is regularly photographed if at a film premiere or snapped by paparazzi, this is completely different type of image. As the viewer I almost feel I am pressing upon his privacy because he is lying in a bed without looking at the camera and is not fully clothed. I do think it is a striking image apart from him being a very attractive man but it is looking at the link between nudity and the celebrity. It makes me think that he is just a man who happens to do a job that makes him famous but until he donned the role of Captain Jack Sparrow, Johnny Depp was relatively unknown, where now he is one of the most famous actors in the world. Leibovitz states that this is what she see they are just people not thinking about how famous they are.
Annie Leibovitz has completed a couple of shoots with Johnny Depp and her images all have the same quality. She has created portraits for the new Pirates of the Caribbean film and all of her images host a kind of mystical feel to them. The image of Depp on the bed works well in black and white, almost classically and as there isn’t any strong light sources the image is quite soft, he truely epitomises the sense of calm and being relaxed from his body positioning and facial expression. Ive researched into some of her other works and it shows how she has created a relationship with them, she is definitely one of my favourite photographers.
Annie Leibovitz at Work, 2008
No comments:
Post a Comment