Annie Leibovitz is one of the most famous photographers in the world: the woman who made her reputation by accompanying the Rolling Stones on tour in 1975 and nearly lost her direction and her soul to a cocaine habit she picked up en route. In the past decade, many of her shots for Vanity Fair's cover have become iconic images, among them Whoopi Goldberg pictured wearing a big smile and nothing else in a bath of milk, and Demi Moore, pregnant, nude and sexy.
If the unpredictability of the Stones's tour was what established her, it's the controlled environment of the studio shoot for which she has latterly become famous. Now she has published a book of photographs of American women, in colour and black-and-white, with a predictably abrasive accompanying essay by feminist Susan Sontag.
Interestingly, for a book whose raison d'etre is visual images, the cover is composed entirely of type two inches high. Given that Sontag's name appears on the cover in the same size capitals as that of Leibovitz, - although her input is, frankly, unequal - there is obviously something going on in the matter of equal egos.
The photographs illustrate both the famous and the unknown: politicians, astronauts, policewomen, actresses, judges, miners, go go dancers, waitresses, diplomats, surgeons, artists, writers, athletes. Among the sleek and glossy portraits of ladies who lunch are also a few representations of women as victims, portrayed by photographs of badly-beaten faces, abused by their male partners. "Such a book would be misleading if it did not touch on the bad news as well," explains Sontag.
There's something vaguely uncomfortable about this theory, though, which sounds a tad like certain women being included in the book to conveniently illustrate society's ills. Tokenism comes to mind.
Still, the photographs themselves are intriguing insights into those they portray. As Sontag says, in conclusion to her essay, "A book of photographs; a book about women; a very American project: generous, ardent, inventive, open-ended. It's for us to decide what to make of these pictures. After all, a photograph is not an opinion. Or is it?"
Annie Leibovitz, Women, Susan Sontag is published by Jonathan Cape at £40 in UK
