Images that capture an individual's quirks are personality are quite difficult to do. It really is quite difficult to capture something so dynamic in a static medium like photography. I think that Leibovitz has excelled at this in her portraits. It also helps that her subjects are public figures that we, as viewers, already have knowledge and preconceptions of: we tangentially know these people through various mediascapes. In this way Leibovitz's work is inextricably linked with the media, it either confirms what we already knew or it adds to what we didn't. Either way her choice to use these public figures imbues her work with a great deal of cultural value and meaning. The most interesting part of Leibovitz's work, for me, is how she chooses to manipulate or play with these public personas.
I really enjoyed Leibovitz's portraits and I would like to see some more of Leibovitz's work depicting normal or unknown individuals. It would be great to see how she uses her photographic niche without as much cultural attachments.
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