Annie Leibovitz on the shots that made her

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Annie Leibovitz is standing by a photograph she took of Pont Neuf in Paris. It’s a swirling panoramic shot of the famous bridge, taken when she was a student and would roam the city’s streets camera in hand. One day, with a thrill, she realised she was standing where her idol, Henri Cartier-Bresson, once stood to take his own ghostly grey picture of the Seine crossing.

Leibovitz’s homage to the great French photographer did not stop there. Her latest exhibition – Annie Leibovitz: The Early Years, 1970-1983 – also features a remarkable shot of Cartier-Bresson himself. The notoriously camera-shy Frenchman glares into her lens. “He wouldn’t let me photograph him,” says Leibovitz. “So I studied his route to work every day and planted myself on a bridge and waited. ‘You!’ he said, when he saw me. Then, ‘All right – take the picture.’”

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from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2U70MQI