When people talk about Annie Leibovitz and Susan Sontag, they usually get stuck on the "labels" thing. Were they a couple? Partners? Just very, very intense friends? Honestly, it depends on who you ask and which year you’re asking.
The two met back in 1988. Leibovitz was shooting publicity photos for Sontag’s book, AIDS and Its Metaphors. Annie was 39, already a titan in the photography world, but she was kinda intimidated. Susan was 55, an intellectual powerhouse who didn't suffer fools.
During that first shoot, Sontag told Leibovitz she was "a good photographer, who could be better." That’s a hell of a thing to say to the woman who shot John Lennon and Yoko Ono, but for Leibovitz, it was exactly what she needed to hear. It kicked off a 15-year saga that changed both their lives.
A Love Story Without the Labels
You’ve probably heard they never lived together. That’s true. They had separate apartments in New York City, though they were close enough to see into each other’s windows. It was a setup that suited their massive personalities. They traveled the world—Jordan, Egypt, Sarajevo—and pushed each other constantly.
Annie took photos. Susan wrote.
They were basically a "power couple" before that term was everywhere, yet they never used words like "partner" or "companion" in public. Leibovitz later said, "Words like 'companion' and 'partner' were not in our vocabulary... The closest word is still 'friend'." But after Sontag died in 2004, Annie was more blunt: "Call us 'lovers'. I like 'lovers.' You know, 'lovers' sounds romantic."
The "Women" Project
One of the biggest things Annie Leibovitz and Susan Sontag ever did together was the book Women, published in 1999. It wasn't just a collection of pretty faces. It was a gritty, diverse look at what it meant to be a woman at the end of the 20th century.
- The Concept: Sontag pushed Annie to go beyond celebrities.
- The Range: They included coal miners, socialites, Supreme Court justices, and victims of domestic violence.
- The Intro: Sontag wrote a legendary essay for the book, arguing that women are always a "work in progress" in a way men aren't.
It’s a heavy book. It’s not "fun" to look at, but it’s real. Sontag’s influence shifted Leibovitz away from the pure "glamour" of her Vanity Fair work toward something much more documentary and raw.
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Facing the End and the Controversy
Sontag battled cancer multiple times. She was a fighter. She survived breast cancer in the 70s and uterine cancer in the 90s, but leukemia eventually took her in December 2004.
During those final weeks, Annie did something that still makes people uncomfortable: she kept her camera out.
She photographed Susan in her hospital bed. She photographed her when she was frail, when she was losing her hair, and eventually, she photographed Susan on her deathbed. When these photos appeared in Leibovitz’s 2006 book A Photographer’s Life: 1990–2005, the backlash was immediate. Some called it a "betrayal of privacy." They argued Sontag, who was so careful about her intellectual image, would have hated being seen that way.
But Annie saw it differently. To her, there wasn't a "personal life" and a "work life." It was just one life.
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"Everyone thinks she was so strong, and she was, but she was also very vulnerable," Leibovitz said of the photos.
She felt that showing the "democracy of death" was part of her duty as an artist. Interestingly, Susan’s son, David Rieff, was one of the vocal critics, though he later wrote his own brutally honest memoir about his mother's death.
The Money and the Legacy
There’s a weird rumor that Sontag’s estate caused Leibovitz’s famous financial meltdown in 2009. It’s a bit of a stretch. While there were tax issues related to properties Sontag left behind, Annie’s money troubles were mostly about her own massive spending and complicated loan deals.
Still, the influence of Sontag is everywhere in Annie’s later work. After Susan died, Annie completed a project called Pilgrimage, photographing the homes and belongings of people she admired—like Emily Dickinson and Virginia Woolf. It was a project they had planned to do together.
Why Their Story Still Matters
What Annie Leibovitz and Susan Sontag had was a collaboration of the mind as much as the heart. They didn't fit into the neat boxes we try to put people in today. They weren't "activists" for their relationship in the way modern celebrities are, but they lived a life that was completely unapologetic.
If you want to understand their impact, don't just look at the glossy magazine covers. Look at the messy, grainy, black-and-white photos of Susan in the hospital. Look at the way Sontag’s writing changed how we see the "ethics" of photography.
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They weren't perfect. They were complicated, demanding, and arguably a bit elitist. But they were never boring.
Practical Next Steps for Further Exploration:
- Read the source material: Pick up a copy of On Photography by Susan Sontag to understand her skepticism of the very medium Leibovitz mastered.
- View the transition: Compare Leibovitz's early Rolling Stone work with the Women collection to see the "Sontag effect" on her composition and subject choice.
- Explore the memoir: If you can find it, look through A Photographer's Life: 1990-2005. It’s the closest thing to a visual diary of their final years.