by Galina Toktalieva
Annie Leibovitz is as famous portrait photographer, but now her genius is close to financial ruin, and she is considered to be a victim of her own obsessive artistic ambition.
Among the qualities making Leibovitz, 59, the most distinguished portrait photographer in the world is her legendary perfectionism.
Lloyd Ziff, a former Rolling Stone designer, remembers Leibovitz , when she was not that famous yet, being sent once to get a simple image of Coke bottle kept in some little museum. “She took 300 to 500 Polaroids of it,” he says.
During her long career, nothing has been too extreme in her pursuit of the perfect picture. Among the portraits she produced, there was a long line of celebrities, from Hollywood stars to Britain’s Queen. Leibovitz’s famous shoots include a nude portrait of John Lennon and Yoko Ono – just before the Beatle was murdered – and nude and pregnant actress Demi Moore.
Leibovits was said to earn a day rate of $250,000 just to set foot in a studio for an advertising job. Also over the years, Leibovitz had bought and sold a small fortune in real estate. Virtually anyone would agree to be photographed by her. (more…)

Kallypso, my dear self, you know that usually I start my everyday street hunt with great enthusiasm. But gradually becoming tired, struggling forward and finding nothing interesting to shoot, frozen, hungry, I feel misery. Shoulder with camera bag aches. It is not so easy to find original face in the street at all. After so many months of search, perhaps nobody knows that better than me. People tend to hide their peculiarities. But not only. Often they do not hide anything. They have standard appearance that reflects standard attitude, by other words, I dare say, people prefer not to burden themselves to be original. Therefore they look alike. They move from underground station till shop and back and have fewer differences in their looks than ants or autumn leaves. Only sometimes I am lucky to spot somebody standing aside from crowd, even if they have criminal aura like these two young gypsies. Woman is looking at me aggressively. I know that in criminal world women often are more ruthless and bold than men. The woman was afraid I am from press or police.