Depth of Field: Annie Leibovitz

Annie Leibovitz is one of the world's most famous photographers, counting amongst her subjects the Queen herself. She started her career as a staff photographer for Rolling Stone magazine in 1970, and- before she left in 1983- worked with names such as John Lennon, Mick Jagger and Bob Dylan. However, these days it seems she concentrates more on making advertising images, usually shot as part of huge scenes with rich imagery and sophisticated lighting set-ups, such as last year's Disney Dream Portrait Series (a video of the making of which can be seen here). Below are some examples of this along with other images.

This shows Scarlett Johansson as Cinderella. As she makes her way down the steps away from the magic kingdom, a  narrow depth of field is used to show where she has just come from. This is complimented by the fact Leibovitz has placed Johansson in the bottom third of the picture and used the steps as a kind of 'leading line' to the kingdom itself.

This is her famous portrait of the queen. Again she had gone wide in this (and also used a narrow aperture), which is her way of adding context by including all the fixtures we'd associate with royalty. This seems a very cold and traditional image for me, but when looking at the rest of the series, some of them are actually quite warm and naturalistic. Certainly the queen as she's never been seen before.

Another stylish advertising shoot by Leibovitz here, this time advertising the Single Malt, The Macallan. The use  of light is phenomenal here; how we have the main subject lounging at the bar, and how the back light itself is making silhouettes of everyone else. Much like Corbijn, we get the sense that every last detail has to exact to fit her vision.