[Leica] Annie Liebovitz and the Sugar Bowl

[walt at waltjohnson.com (Walt Johnson)]

Mr. McKee's Diatribith......

R. Clayton McKee wrote:

>Why would I envy her?  She's reportedly quite good at what she does, 
>and I'm sure she makes a great deal more money than I do... but I 
>don't care for heavily "produced" photographs,  don't find her work 
>particularly interesting, couldn't care less about associating with 
>"celebrities" (I meet a lot of very interesting people as it is, none 
>of whom have anywhere near the kind of ego issues that most 
>celebrities I've met are refusing to deal with...), and, while I 
>admit that having money is up to a point more fun than not having it, 
>I learned years ago that there isn't and never will be enough money 
>to make up for doing work I don't like and can't be proud of...
>
>So I don't see anything at all that she has that I would want.  I'm 
>glad she's happy with what she does, but I'm equally happy that I'm 
>not her.
>
>(And I freakin' bloody HATE walking into a room and hearing "Hey, 
>it's the photographer from the paper!!" because ain't getting NOTHING 
>interesting after that.)
>//leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information
>  
>

Clayton:

I wasn't talking envy in the sense you seem to be. I do envy some of the 
career decisions she must have made while many of us get sidetracked. 
Respecting her accomplishments in no was indicates I want to be her. 
There are, I'll admit, many times I don't even want to be me. Much of 
this probably relates to news work. To me, newspapers are a very poor 
excuse for the 1st Amendment. I have more than my share of press 
experience but see little or no saving grace there. Tasteless, 
exploitive and a really bad place to garner one's information and world 
view.

Walt