Annie Leibovitz - Masterclass

casanoffi

casanoffi

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Andreas
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Hi guys,

does anyone watching the Masterclass Sessions from Annie Leibovitz?

I heard a lot of divided opinions about it.
Some critique because of she "doesn´t teaches photography at all - it´s just a portrait of herself being a philosopher".

I´m curious about your opinions :)

Thanks and cheers
Cas
 
Perhaps I'm just being a Philiistine but there are a whole range of range of photographers whose work I consider vastly over-rated. Ms. Leibovitz is one of them,.
 
Agree about her work being overrated but I'd still be interested to hear from someone who has seen the video.
 
Firstly I haven't bought or watched the master class, but I have watched a number of interviews with Annie Leibotvitz, so I base my views on that. Also please excuse my clumsy use of vocabulary here ... I sometimes find it difficult to articulate what is going round in my head!

I doubt very much if this is a "how-to" type master class, more likely a "how Annie Leibotvitz approaches photography" type thing. I find her fascinating to listen to, and her self confessed "lack of technical knowledge" leaves me somewhat jealous and bemused. I truly wish I could ignore the technical and just take photographs (or perhaps I should say make photographs ??). I doubt she does lack technical knowledge as such, suspecting that she more likely uses it intuitively rather than some form of pre-meditated thought.

Given that there is a huge amount of free material with her in it, I'm not sure there will be anything new in this master class, however it may that it is more structured as such.

As for her work being overrated, I find myself at odds with myself here. Some of her work I find it to be utterly dull but I readily accept that I may not have the tool set to appreciate it. Some I find it much like any other as in 'nice photo ...' but a good proportion of it is fabulous. I guess with such a large catalogue of work some is bound to be ordinary.

A few thing spring to mind looking at the course curriculum, the last case study is digital pp, she doesn't do any, she has a professional re-toucher so not sure how that will work ... it also seems to be mainly targetted towards working with natural light and a more philosophical approach. So if that is what you want then it could well be a great purchase, if you are looking for a how-to or a recipe based approach on how she creates images I suspect you will be disappointed.

I suspect I need to be careful here, otherwise I may soon end up using the "A" word ;)
 
PaulButler said:
As for her work being overrated, I find myself at odds with myself here. Some of her work I find it to be utterly dull but I readily accept that I may not have the tool set to appreciate it.
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Personally, I think dull is dull and a correct (unquestioning ?) 'tool set' is somewhat irrelevant in judging that.

A few years back I went to a Wildlife Photographer of the Year display with a non-photographic friend. "Why has that won anything?" he said pointing to a photo of a gathering of whales "Its a really bad picture." Frankly he was right, it was a very poor composition and fairly meaningless snapshot without the info board unless you know a lot about whales. I suggested it was awarded, not because of the quality of the image, but because it would have been so incredibly difficult to have got the specific content of the image at all, so despite being a poor image in itself, its content was exceptionally rare and highly valuable to those recording and studying natural history, it had taken great tenacity to obtain the image. I am glad the difficulty of the whale image was recognised and rewarded.

I don't feel Leibovitz has the same disadvantages as the whale photographer, so her sometimes dull and repetitive images are just... dull and repetitive images. Personally I feel there is a lot of hero worship Emperors new clothes, but this is not to say all of her images are poor, some are good - but I think the images should be seen more individually rather than clumped together as default 'excellent' just because of who pushed the camera button.

I also find it difficult to look past the various reports of her being technically incompetent and rude to the assistants who I have read to do most of her lighting design/set ups and post processing - to enable her to uphold her reputation.

However I have never met her, she may be a really nice person in real life and the reports I have read may be misleading or false.
Overall, I like some of her images, she does some good stuff, but I see no reason for her to be held up as a living god of photography other than for her income and for the high profile clients she is able to access due to her employer.
 
juggler said:
Please can we see your portraits to get some idea of where you're coming from?
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This request does not defend Annie Leibovitz or evaluate the skill of her work. Its not necessary to train as a chef for 10 years in order to recognise a meal is dissatisfying :)

We all judge every day we live, things which we do not have deep personal skill in - architecture, garden design, music, the patterns of someones scatter cushions... lack of deep personal ability in a specific subject is not a reason to imply someone's personal view may have little worth. How many art critics can paint? - yet they publish books, get TV shows, write articles in magazines and get respect!
 
Jay (@MidnightUK ) you take a snippet of my post, which therefore takes it out of context, to then launch some form of veiled attack? By all means have your say about Annie Leibovitz but don't use a snippet of a post (mine or otherwise) to imply that I am somehow holding her up as some form of photographic god - or that there is some form of hero worship here. If you want to troll, please find somewhere else to do so.
 
PaulButler said:
Jay (@MidnightUK ) you take a snippet of my post, which therefore takes it out of context, to then launch some form of veiled attack? By all means have your say about Annie Leibovitz but don't use a snippet of a post (mine or otherwise) to imply that I am somehow holding her up as some form of photographic god - or that there is some form of hero worship here. If you want to troll, please find somewhere else to do so.
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I find this a bizarre reply. No one is being attacked, not even Leibovitz. Numerous people in the photography world view Leibovitz as god like (look on many forums for comment on her), it was not intended to be specific to you. I was in fact pointing out that no one needs a 'tool set' in order to like or dislike or indeed, feel neutral about someone's art product or work. Such views are personal responses. You appeared to be saying that you might only find her work dull due to your lack of knowledge. I was saying, no its not your lack of knowledge necessarily, her work may just be.... dull at times.

I fail to see why this would count as trolling. I was saying you were perhaps underrating the value of your own personal response. I thought I was being supportive of your objectivity. Still, read it as you will....
 
MidnightUK said:
I find this a bizarre reply. No one is being attacked, not even Leibovitz. Numerous people in the photography world view Leibovitz as god like (look on many forums for comment on her), it was not intended to be specific to you. I was in fact pointing out that no one needs a 'tool set' in order to like or dislike or indeed, feel neutral about someone's art product or work. Such views are personal responses. You appeared to be saying that you might only find her work dull due to your lack of knowledge. I was saying, no its not your lack of knowledge necessarily, her work may just be.... dull at times.

I fail to see why this would count as trolling. I was saying you were perhaps underrating the value of your own personal response. I thought I was being supportive of your objectivity. Still, read it as you will....
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Then I misinterpreted your response. Apologies.
 
MidnightUK said:
...lack of deep personal ability in a specific subject is not a reason to imply someone's personal view may have little worth.
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Yes it is.:D

Critics tend to have an in-depth knowledge of their subject, even if they don't practice it. They don't just say something is a load of crap and walk away, they explain why they think it's a load of crap. But these days everyone on the internet thinks their opinion is as valid as anyone else's.Which it isn't.

Leibowitz's work isn't to my taste, but she's undeniably good and successful at what she does. For that reason alone watching a documentary about her should be enlightening even if you still think she's overrated at the end of it.
 
MidnightUK said:
I don't feel Leibovitz has the same disadvantages as the whale photographer, so her sometimes dull and repetitive images are just... dull and repetitive images. Personally I feel there is a lot of hero worship Emperors new clothes
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As @Ed Sutton posted above, let’s not confuse the right to an opinion with the value of that opinion.

I have to admit I bristle every time I see mention of ‘emperors new clothes ‘ in discussions. Not because I’m a forelock tugging follower of the herd, but the opposite.

It’s almost always used out of context. The idiots who failed to see the naked emperor not because they were ‘experts’ but because they were frightened.

There’s no consensus of experts who create a sense of what’s good. You can probably find as many critics who disapprove of her as those who laud her. She’s never been universally liked, but she is commercially successful.

I personally feel the work of Justin Beiber is crass, but I can barely sing a note and he’s sold millions of records. So I’m entitled to my opinion, but it doesn’t alter the fact that in the grand scheme of things, it’s worth bugger all.

As for Annie Liebowitz, it’s years since she shot anything I like, but how relevant is that statement?

And if I wanted a ‘masterclass’, then there’s some great stuff on creative live that’d help someone with a desire to learn. But this doesn’t look a great buy to me.
 
PaulButler said:
Then I misinterpreted your response. Apologies.
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Yes, I am sorry too. I really intended to be supportive of you. It may be my writing style at fault. Sometimes its hard to interpret stuff in writing, when there is so little tone or inflection to pick up on.
 
Ed Sutton said:
Leibowitz's work isn't to my taste, but she's undeniably good and successful at what she does. For that reason alone watching a documentary about her should be enlightening even if you still think she's overrated at the end of it.
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Totally agree with these comments. I personally dont like a lot of David Baileys work either, but have enjoyed seeing him interviewed on YouTube and other places.
 
MidnightUK said:
This request does not defend Annie Leibovitz or evaluate the skill of her work. Its not necessary to train as a chef for 10 years in order to recognise a meal is dissatisfying :)

We all judge every day we live, things which we do not have deep personal skill in - architecture, garden design, music, the patterns of someones scatter cushions... lack of deep personal ability in a specific subject is not a reason to imply someone's personal view may have little worth. How many art critics can paint? - yet they publish books, get TV shows, write articles in magazines and get respect!
Click to expand...

Critique of the ‘I don’t like that, it’s overrated’ type is utterly valueless.

@Barryboy hasn’t been able to articulate his reasons for disliking the work of a large number of high profile photographers.

Since he’s presumably a photographer I’m guessing he might be better able to express himself with images.
 
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Ed Sutton said:
Yes it is.:D

Critics tend to have an in-depth knowledge of their subject, even if they don't practice it. They don't just say something is a load of crap and walk away, they explain why they think it's a load of crap. But these days everyone on the internet thinks their opinion is as valid as anyone else's.Which it isn't.

Leibowitz's work isn't to my taste, but she's undeniably good and successful at what she does. For that reason alone watching a documentary about her should be enlightening even if you still think she's overrated at the end of it.
Click to expand...

Exactly.

In art - there, I used the A word - context is sometimes more important than content.

It takes expertise, not just opinion, to understand context.
 
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