Who

The most famous celebrity photographer in America, Leibovitz shoots portraits of Hollywood stars for magazines like Vanity Fair and big companies like Disney and American Express.

Backstory

The daughter of an Air Force officer, Connecticut-born Leibovitz moved from base to base as a kid, first taking up photography, she says, on a trip to an Israeli kibbutz as a teen. After high school, she headed west to study painting at the San Francisco Art Institute, enrolling in a night class in photography. In 1970, 21-year-old Leibovitz approached Jann Wenner about shooting for his nascent Rolling Stone, and landed her first cover—featuring John Lennon—in 1971. She was named the magazine's chief photographer two years later, and spent more than a decade chronicling the raucous rock 'n' roll era, touring with the Stones in 1975 and earning her most famous cover in 1980 when she snapped (a naked) John Lennon and (a fully-clothed) Yoko Ono just hours before his assassination.

Rolling Stone's sales numbers started to dip in the early '80s—Wenner chalked up the decline to Leibovitz's more conceptual covers—and in 1983 she decamped to Vanity Fair. When Tina Brown was named editor-in-chief a year later, Leibovitz became VF's first contributing photo editor, and went on to shoot a series of now-iconic covers like a pregnant, nude Demi Moore (a cover that Brown initially didn't want to run) and Whoopi Goldberg submerged in a bath of milk.

Leibovitz has continued to shoot for Vanity Fair—she now takes her cues from Graydon Carter—but she also takes photos for other Condé Nast magazines like The New Yorker and Vogue. And she still collects big paychecks from her corporate clients like Disney, the Gap, and American Express, as well as from less prestigious advertisers: She was responsible for a slew of those "Got Milk?" ads brought to you by the National Fluid Milk Processor Promotion Board in the late '90s.

Of note

Known for her extravagant, carefully-staged shoots, Leibovitz has shot hundreds of celebrities, politicians, and moguls over the years. Just some of the people who have sat for her: Brad Pitt, Scarlett Johannson, George Clooney, Tom Hanks, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Kirsten Dunst, Julia Roberts, Steven Spielberg, Nicole Kidman, Ellen DeGeneres, Ronald Reagan, Nelson Mandela, George Bush, and Bill Clinton. Her oversized rep helps her land assignments that other photographers would give their eyes for: When Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes revealed baby Suri to the world in 2006, for example, it was Annie who snapped the pics. A pushover, though, she isn't: Leibovitz had Kate Winslet repeatedly dumped in a tank of water for one shoot, and had Clint Eastwood tied up in ropes for another.

Now the highest paid photographer in the business, Leibovitz isn't without her critics. Although she once seemed to bridge the line between fine art photography and the more commercial variety, her work has leaned much more in favor of the latter over the past decade, and she's been accused of lacking imagination and recycling ideas. Some have pointed to her tendency to use clichéd set-ups (noble British actors in equestrian get-ups, all-powerful billionaires against the backdrop of a limitless ocean or sky) as proof that her creative well has run dry. Some critics have also taken her to task for what they perceive as a lack of humanity in her work: A New York Times review of her 2003 book American Music suggested that she was "devoutly committed to portraiture while seeming remarkably uninterested in people."

Drama

Although Leibovitz may be best known currently for her quasi-naked shots of 15-year-old Miley Cyrus in 2008, she's caused controversy before. In 2007, she was invited by Queen Elizabeth II to take an official portrait of the queen; when the bossy photographer asked her to remove her crown for a photo, Her Royal Highness was none too pleased with the directive. (A video showing the Queen storming out of the photo session, however, was later revealed to have been doctored.) In 1996, Leibovitz sued Paramount Pictures after an ad for a movie parodied her 1991 Vanity Fair cover of Moore. Leibovitz argued it was copyright infringement, although a court eventually sided with the studio and said it was a protected parody.

In print

Leibovitz's work can be seen in the 2005 book A Photographer's Life: 1990-2005, which catalogues a retrospective at the Brooklyn Museum.

Vice

Leibovitz says she was hooked on drugs while following the Rolling Stones on tour in the 1970s. She claims her parents forced her into rehab.

Personal

Leibovitz had a 15-year relationship with author Susan Sontag, who passed away from cancer in December 2004. (They met in 1989 when Leibovitz was assigned to photograph Sontag for a book.) Leibovitz had gone to great lengths to keep their partnership quiet over the years; in fact, many newspapers failed to mention her in Sontag's obituaries. Leibovitz has three children: Sarah Cameron Leibovitz (born through artificial insemination when Leibovitz was 51, in 2001), and twins Susan and Samuelle Leibovitz, who were born via a surrogate in 2005.

Habitat

Leibovitz used to occupy a pair of penthouses in London Terrace's southwest tower. She sold the apartments after Sontag's death. She now owns a spacious home/studio on West 11th Street in the Village and a 200-acre property in Rhinebeck.