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Annie Leibobovitz.

Paul Russell said:
I think I read that the Lavazza shoot was meant to be on location but was just done in the studio due to mysterious "time and budgetary constraints", and the thing was cobbled together afterwards. Maybe she had just over-committed herself with projects in an attempt to pay off her debts.

Anyway, unlike Bosky, I know nothing about her and so take no pleasure in her difficulties. I was just pointing out that, for whatever reasons, those calendar pictures are hideously cheesy, overblown, and botched. Lavazza will have given her some sort of brief, but "please make them look shit" probably wasn't part of that.
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I'm not a pro, but it seems to me that although the subjects of some of the photos are ridiculous, laughable, they are not technically flawed as photos.

Are you saying that the subjects or the concepts behind the photos are bad, or that she screwed up technically or procedurally when actually taking or later altering the photo?
 
The cover photo makes me think of this album cover, which is also arguably a bit on the ridiculous side.

cover_365162822009.jpg


I went back and looked. I'd say that the worst photo from a 'technical' perspective, is the model standing amongst the mannequins.
 
You're trying desperately to make this into the kind of argument where you hold the moral high ground. Isn't going to work.
 
Refused as fuck said:
You're trying desperately to make this into the kind of argument where you hold the moral high ground. Isn't going to work.
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What moral high ground?

What are you talking about? You dislike the photos. I don't much like them either. But the reason they fall down is the subject matter, not her skill as a photographer, or lack thereof.
 
Paul Russell said:
http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2008/12/the-worst-photo.html
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But for inspired badness, this recent "photograph"* by Annie Leibovitz for the Lavazza calendar has it all: a pandering (unto capitulation) to empty style; excessive color which is nevertheless unattractive; an attractive model who is also unattractive (though she got legs! But what the hell is with that expression?); a really woeful idea (Romulus and Remus and their wolf-mother—oh, please) that nevertheless doesn't even work; heavyhanded overproduction; no trace of irony; a blatantly fake background that doesn't even try to match the studio-shot foreground; a baby butt, for that touch of smack-you-with-a-dead-fish cuteness; campy makeup, kitschy hair; and, to top it all off, a hilariously incongruous product placement like an embarrassing pimple.
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Seems that the aesthetics of the photo weigh heavily with this reviewer, with some mention of technical missteps playing second fiddle. Imo. :)
 
Johnny Canuck2 said:
What moral high ground?

What are you talking about? You dislike the photos. I don't much like them either. But the reason they fall down is the subject matter, not her skill as a photographer, or lack thereof.
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So can you point out to me who is saying she lacks skill as a photographer?
 
Liebovitz is probably one of the most well known photographers, as is her work. It is admittedly uneven.

Now she has money trouble, and the way it seems to me, a bunch of people who can only dream of ever attaining one tenth of her success, gather around to cackle and point.

Bad form, imo.
 
Johnny Canuck2 said:
Liebovitz is probably one of the most well known photographers, as is her work. It is admittedly uneven.

Now she has money trouble, and the way it seems to me, a bunch of people who can only dream of ever attaining one tenth of her success, gather around to cackle and point.

Bad form, imo.
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it's human to delight in a falling star
 
Johnny Canuck2 said:
Liebovitz is probably one of the most well known photographers, as is her work. It is admittedly uneven.

Now she has money trouble, and the way it seems to me, a bunch of people who can only dream of ever attaining one tenth of her success, gather around to cackle and point.

Bad form, imo.
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So no then.

Someone give JohnnyCanuck2 the Humanitarian Award he is after so he can fuck off.
 
If it's money we want to talk about then with all due respect, I doubt that there is anyone here who could walk into a bank and take out a 24 million dollar loan secured by their photographic work.
 
Johnny Canuck2 said:
Money equals artistic success, then?
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OK, come on, I was joking.

As I said above -- I know nothing about Annie L's life. I would prefer it if she found her way out of her financial difficulty, even though Bosky paints her as not a very nice character. Maybe she has been living in some sort of fantasy world. Who knows? She definitely has not been getting good financial advice.

She has done some great work in the past, although a lot of it is not really my thing. However, that Lavazza calendar is an absolute steaming pile of shite. IMHO, and several other people. It's not minor details. It's like an explosion in a bad taste factory. Like a Meatloaf cover that they rejected as being laughably over the top.

If you can't see that, fine. It's only my opinion!
 
Paul Russell said:
OK, come on, I was joking.

As I said above -- I know nothing about Annie L's life. I would prefer it if she found her way out of her financial difficulty, even though Bosky paints her as not a very nice character. Maybe she has been living in some sort of fantasy world. Who knows? She definitely has not been getting good financial advice.

She has done some great work in the past, although a lot of it is not really my thing. However, that Lavazza calendar is an absolute steaming pile of shite. IMHO, and several other people. It's not minor details. It's like an explosion in a bad taste factory. Like a Meatloaf cover that they rejected as being laughably over the top.

If you can't see that, fine. It's only my opinion!
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I completely agree that it is a totally crap calendar. It's ridiculous.
 
Orang Utan said:
laughing at someone's downfall is fine when it stems directly from their hubris is different than just laughing at someone who's just fallen off their bike
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I don't know all the details, but it sounds to me like her downfall stems directly from being really bad with money, something that lots of us regular people can probably relate to.
 
She may be a bitch or a jerk or whatever adjective, but again, without a lot of background info, it looks to me like things started really going off the rails for her when her partner Sontag died. Maybe Sontag was the more grounded of the pair.

Now she's fucking up.
 
There's no way that calendar could've become so crap without the content being endlessly debated and argued over at the client end as well as the art end. Srsly - even with the most off the leash creatives I've worked with there's almost always a consistent theme when doing calendars, even if it's shite. This thing is an abomination (altho I do like the Da Vinci 'Man' in the giant coffee cup), even among Lavazza calendars
 
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