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• Annie Leibovitz is an American photographer who is known for her edgy celebrity portraits. Leiboviz photographed First Lady Michelle Obama for a Vogue cover in 2009.

  The New York Times speculated in February 2009 that Leibovitz may be experiencing financial difficulties after she borrowed over $20 million from a company called Art Capital Group, putting her Greenwich Village home, a country home and the rights to all of her photographs on the line as collateral. Sources close to the photographer have said that Leibovitz used the money to pay off mortgages and deal with other "financial stresses".New York Times: It's at the Pawnshop... (February 24, 2009)

• Fast Facts

  1. Born: October 2, 1949
  2. Birthplace: Waterbury, Connecticut
  3. Attended the San Francisco Art Institute
  4. Best known for work with Rolling Stone and Vanity Fair magazines
  5. Engaged in long and intimate relationship with late author Susan Sontag, who died in 2004
  6. Big break: Rolling Stone Magazine assignment to take pictures of John Lennon in 1970
  7. Became Rolling Stone chief photographer in 1973
  8. First book published with her work: Annie Leibovitz: Photographs in 1983

• Background

  Leibovitz got her big break with an assignment by Rolling Stone to shoot John Lennon in 1970. Her image of a bearded Lennon appeared on the cover of the January 21, 1971, issue of the magazine. Throughout the 1970s, the young artist photographed such cultural icons as Bob Dylan, Patti Smith, Bob Marley, and The Rolling Stones. Just hours before his assassination in 1981, Leibovitz completed a photo session with John Lennon and wife Yoko Ono.

  One of her shoots for Vanity Fair involving teen idol Miley Cyrus provoked controversy when Cyrus, then 15, claimed to have been embarrassed by the shoot, which featured her clad only in a lacy sheet.

• Recent Career

  Beginning in the 1980s, Leibovitz began to tackle less music-related subjects, including politicians such as George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, and even became a war zone photographer in Sarajevo during the Balkan Wars.

• Related Mahalo Pages

  Annie Leibovitz Debt | Photography | Rolling Stone Magazine | Vanity Fair Magazine | Leszek Kolakowski

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