Annie Leibovitz Quotes

"Keep it 100" means keeping it 100 percent real. It comes from the expression ... "keeping it real," which means you are being completely honest and 100 percent real means you are really being honest, which is kind of a contradiction of sorts. You're either being honest or you're not.

People are at their best when they can be natural. And that's the hardest thing as a photographer.

I am trying to capture the women I photograph at their happiest. That is when they look their most beautiful. But I do understand that you have to make somebody feel completely comfortable in order to bring that out.

Your aim as a photographer is to get a picture of that person that means something. Portraits aren't fantasies; they need to tell a truth.

When you go to take someone's picture, the first thing they say is, what you want me to do? Everyone is very awkward.

Being serious just makes me a little bit embarrassed.

You better be photographing a guy that’s happy and not some kind of snarler.

Pictorial is something that I am not used to. You have to pose, smile, bend your arm, straighten up, look to the left.

If I do a portrait, I know what they can take. If somebody's a sweet, shy person, the photographs will be sweet and shy. Of course, you ask people to do something which they might not have done before, but that's the journey, the fun element.

Part of what makes my character work is the delivery of the truth behind my comments.

Even though I'm an actor, even though I know a little bit about film, I very much view things as an audience member. For me, whether it's TV, film, theater, whatever, it's a big movie, a small movie, whatever it is, I look for the truth in it. I look for the honesty. I just look for if it feels honest and real to me.

The reason some portraits don't look true to life is that some people make no effort to resemble their pictures.

When you pose for a photograph, it's behind a smile that isn't yours. You are angry and hungry and alive. What I value in you is that intensity. I want to make portraits as intense as people.

You listen to a politician making a speech, and it is like hearing nothing. Whereas, music is unmistakably music. The thing about music is that nobody listens to it unless it's real. I don't think that you can fool anybody for too long in music. And you certainly can't fool everybody.

You can't write nothing that ain't real.

What I love about our show is that it's so nuanced and feels very real to me. I think how it explores creativity in general is very real.

The only way you can write the truth is to assume that what you set down will never be read.

Most people stiffen with self-consciousness when they pose for a photograph. Lighting and fine camera equipment are useless if the photographer cannot make them drop the mask, at least for a moment, so he can capture on his film their real, undistorted personality and character.

That’s one of the nice things about writing, or any art; if the thing’s real, it just lives.

I've never been that person to fake it, and say what everyone else wants you to say. Then you never have anything personal. If I wanted to be an actress all the time, I could do that. But I don't. I want to be real. I want to be a real person. That's what an artist is. An artist has to be honest. Without honesty, there's nothing.

I was already in a groove and decided to initially write down everything, as I would in an actual diary, and then go back and take out what I was too shy to reveal. But I wound up leaving more in than I imagined, and that was because I wanted to be transparent and real.

When you're just reading a note card but when you're just reading a note card and it doesn't even feel real, it's difficult at times. But I have no problem doing interviews. So I have absolutely no problem doing interviews.

Is passion what we are? Is that what we are in pictures? Is what we are in pictures almost real? Maybe it's become the most real thing.

Okay, so if that's not real, what is? What counts, to you?" He thought for a second, then said, "I don't know. Just because someone's pretty doesn't mean she's decent. Or vice versa. I'm not into appearances. I like flaws, I think they make things interesting." I wasn't sure what answer I'd expected. But this wasn't it. For a second, I just sat there, letting it sink in. "You know," I said finally, "saying stuff like that would make girls even crazier for you. Now you're cuteand somewhat more attainable. If you were appealing before, now you're off the charts.

The sophisticated concern about art sinks before a spontaneous love of reality, and I thank the photograph for being so transparent a vehicle for things.