Annie Liebovitz at Work

On my Christmas list is a new book from uber-shooter, Annie Liebovitz. The celebrated photographer calls her latest tome, Annie Leibovitz at Work.

This isn't a review. As mentioned above, the book is merely on my wish list. I don't own a copy nor have I read it. But I have read some stuff others have said about Annie's latest and, as a result, those words have triggered my curiosity and I want a copy for myself.

Over on the ever-popular Strobist site, David Hobby, Strobist's guru, had a couple of words to say about the book. In his mini-review, something David wrote struck a chord with me: "Much space is given to her approach, what she is thinking, problems to be solved, photographer-subject interaction and the like."

Photographer-subject interaction.

Yeah.

If there's one element that often sets a competent people-photographer's images apart from the pack, it's photographer-subject interaction. Once a photographer is comfortable using his gear, wielding it effortlessly and effectively like a shutter-snapping Samurai, once a photographer has learned to manipulate exposure, lighting, and composition with ease and finesse, the skill that's left to conquer--certainly to refine--is photographer-subject interaction.

Unfortunately, this final skill set is difficult to learn. There are no all-purpose, DIY photographer-subject interaction instructions to guide shutter-snapping devotees on their paths to photo Nirvana. It's a skill that some people naturally possess and others need to work hard at developing. Like a doctor's bedside manner, it's that one, often-unpredictable, variable that can cure the ills of pedestrian pretty girl shooting or keep it languishing in the Ho-Hum ward.

I've said this before, it's lonely out there in front of the camera and in the lights. An experienced model will bust out interesting, even compelling, poses and expressions that impress the shooter and artfully convey emotions and attitudes. But if you're hoping for something more, it's up to you, the shooter, to inspire, to motivate, to find ways to reveal something about the model/subject that transcend what's been captured by others and what she already has in her modeling bag-of-tricks. Doing so is accomplished, leastwise potentially accomplished, through dynamic photographer-subject interactions.

I'm confident that, if we had an opportunity to watch Annie Leibovitz at Work, we'd see she has this photographer-subject interaction stuff down pat, as do many other notable portraiture photographers. It's the thing that sets them apart. If you're looking to set yourself apart, like I'm always trying to do, developing and refining your interactions with the subject will go a long way towards doing so. We're not shooting still-life images when we're pretty girl shooting. We're photographing living, breathing, animated, beautiful, sexy, emoting beings. How well those in our viewfinders convey something more than they ordinarily convey for other shooters depends on how effectively the photographer wields his or her people skills.