My lens of choice was always the 35 mm. It was more environmental. You can’t come in closer with the 35 mm.

Meaning of the quote

The 35 mm camera lens was Annie Leibovitz's favorite because it allowed her to capture more of the surroundings in her photographs. Unlike a lens that zooms in closer, the 35 mm lens made it harder for her to get too close to her subjects. This helped create a sense of the environment and setting in her photos.

About Annie Leibovitz

Annie Leibovitz is an acclaimed American portrait photographer known for her intimate and captivating celebrity photos. She has been recognized as a Living Legend by the Library of Congress and was the first woman to have a feature exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C.

More about the author

More quotes from Annie Leibovitz

I am impressed with what happens when someone stays in the same place and you took the same picture over and over and it would be different, every single frame.

Annie Leibovitz

American photographer (born 1949)

If it makes you cry, it goes in the show.

Annie Leibovitz

American photographer (born 1949)

A very subtle difference can make the picture or not.

Annie Leibovitz

American photographer (born 1949)

Nature is so powerful, so strong. Capturing its essence is not easy – your work becomes a dance with light and the weather. It takes you to a place within yourself.

Annie Leibovitz

American photographer (born 1949)

I feel a responsibility to my backyard. I want it to be taken care of and protected.

Annie Leibovitz

American photographer (born 1949)

I’ve created a vocabulary of different styles. I draw from many different ways to take a picture. Sometimes I go back to reportage, to journalism.

Annie Leibovitz

American photographer (born 1949)

The camera makes you forget you’re there. It’s not like you are hiding but you forget, you are just looking so much.

Annie Leibovitz

American photographer (born 1949)

I feel very proud of the work from the ’80s because it is very bright and colorful.

Annie Leibovitz

American photographer (born 1949)

What I learned from Lennon was something that did stay with me my whole career, which is to be very straightforward. I actually love talking about taking pictures, and I think that helps everyone.

Annie Leibovitz

American photographer (born 1949)

In a portrait, you have room to have a point of view. The image may not be literally what’s going on, but it’s representative.

Annie Leibovitz

American photographer (born 1949)

Coming tight was boring to me, just the face… it didn’t have enough information.

Annie Leibovitz

American photographer (born 1949)

The pictures of my family were designed to be on a family wall, they were supposed to be together. It was supposed to copy my mother’s wall in her house.

Annie Leibovitz

American photographer (born 1949)

What I am interested in now is the landscape. Pictures without people. I wouldn’t be surprised if eventually there are no people in my pictures. It is so emotional.

Annie Leibovitz

American photographer (born 1949)

I’d like to think that the actions we take today will allow others in the future to discover the wonders of landscapes we helped protect but never had the chance to enjoy ourselves.

Annie Leibovitz

American photographer (born 1949)

You don’t have to sort of enhance reality. There is nothing stranger than truth.

Annie Leibovitz

American photographer (born 1949)

What I end up shooting is the situation. I shoot the composition and my subject is going to help the composition or not.

Annie Leibovitz

American photographer (born 1949)

If I didn’t have my camera to remind me constantly, I am here to do this, I would eventually have slipped away, I think. I would have forgotten my reason to exist.

Annie Leibovitz

American photographer (born 1949)

I didn’t want to let women down. One of the stereotypes I see breaking is the idea of aging and older women not being beautiful.

Annie Leibovitz

American photographer (born 1949)

I shoot a little bit, maybe two rolls, medium format, which is 20 pictures, and if it’s not working, I change the position.

Annie Leibovitz

American photographer (born 1949)

My hope is that we continue to nurture the places that we love, but that we also look outside our immediate worlds.

Annie Leibovitz

American photographer (born 1949)

When I started working for Rolling Stone, I became very interested in journalism and thought maybe that’s what I was doing, but it wasn’t.

Annie Leibovitz

American photographer (born 1949)

No one ever thought Clint Eastwood was funny, but he was.

Annie Leibovitz

American photographer (born 1949)

Everyone keeps asking you for pictures, and after a while you get tired of that. I always say, They are in the archives.

Annie Leibovitz

American photographer (born 1949)

When you are younger, the camera is like a friend and you can go places and feel like you’re with someone, like you have a companion.

Annie Leibovitz

American photographer (born 1949)

There are still so many places on our planet that remain unexplored. I’d love to one day peel back the mystery and understand them.

Annie Leibovitz

American photographer (born 1949)

A thing that you see in my pictures is that I was not afraid to fall in love with these people.

Annie Leibovitz

American photographer (born 1949)

It’s hard to watch something go on and be talking at the same time.

Annie Leibovitz

American photographer (born 1949)

There must be a reason why photographers are not very good at verbal communication. I think we get lazy.

Annie Leibovitz

American photographer (born 1949)

When I say I want to photograph someone, what it really means is that I’d like to know them. Anyone I know I photograph.

Annie Leibovitz

American photographer (born 1949)

At my Rolling Stones’ tour, the camera was a protection. I used it in a Zen way.

Annie Leibovitz

American photographer (born 1949)

My lens of choice was always the 35 mm. It was more environmental. You can’t come in closer with the 35 mm.

Annie Leibovitz

American photographer (born 1949)

It’s a heavy weight, the camera. Now we have modern and lightweight, small plastic cameras, but in the ’70s they were heavy metal.

Annie Leibovitz

American photographer (born 1949)

I was scared to do anything in the studio because it felt so claustrophobic. I wanted to be somewhere where things could happen and the subject wasn’t just looking back at you.

Annie Leibovitz

American photographer (born 1949)

Computer photography won’t be photography as we know it. I think photography will always be chemical.

Annie Leibovitz

American photographer (born 1949)

Lennon was very helpful. What he taught me seems completely obvious: he expected people to treat each other well.

Annie Leibovitz

American photographer (born 1949)

I don’t think there is anything wrong with white space. I don’t think it’s a problem to have a blank wall.

Annie Leibovitz

American photographer (born 1949)

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

Annie Leibovitz

American photographer (born 1949)

Sometimes I enjoy just photographing the surface because I think it can be as revealing as going to the heart of the matter.

Annie Leibovitz

American photographer (born 1949)

When I take a picture I take 10 percent of what I see.

Annie Leibovitz

American photographer (born 1949)

I still need the camera because it is the only reason anyone is talking to me.

Annie Leibovitz

American photographer (born 1949)

I wish that all of nature’s magnificence, the emotion of the land, the living energy of place could be photographed.

Annie Leibovitz

American photographer (born 1949)

When you are on assignment, film is the least expensive thing in a very practical sense. Your time, the person’s time, turns out to be the most valuable thing.

Annie Leibovitz

American photographer (born 1949)

The work which is manipulated looks a little boring to me. I think life is pretty strange anyway. It is wooo, wooo, wooo!

Annie Leibovitz

American photographer (born 1949)