My moment with Annie Leibovitz

Annie Leibovitz has been my hero for so long, and a few days ago I met her!

She was interviewed by a reporter from the New York Times onstage, and afterwards they opened up the mic to the audience (both live and online). Although I didn’t get up right away, I was oddly enough the first in line for the mic left of stage. My heart started to pound! A question came in from Facebook, “Do you ever get starstruck?” to which she replied, “All the time.” This helped me relax, so when her attention and the cameras turned to me next, it felt perfectly natural for me to tell her how starstruck I felt speaking to her, my idol. She said, “Come here, I’ll slap you around!” (To knock the starstruckness out of me). What a goofball! I felt like we were sitting in her living room having a beer, so I responded, “You can slap me around anytime!”. We both cracked up and the moment was pure magic.

These are screen shots from our exchange, and I’ve added Henry Cartier-Bresson, the magnificent French photojournalist, who we both admire. Here he is holding his empty glass of wine up to the camera, pretending to take a photo. Charlie Rose, who had just interviewed him, is laughing hysterically behind him. Humor is such a mysterious and extraordinary thing, which creates a special bond when shared. I love seeing all of us being silly and laughing! It was my dream to meet him in Paris when I lived there, but I never did, so in this photo collage I get to enjoy a good time with both of my idols.

Anyway, back to the talk. It was wonderful and can be seen in its entirety here, (you can see my moment with Annie at around 56:15. ) Afterwards at the book signing, our conversation continued.

We had lots to talk about, (Alice Waters, her sister Susan in Berkeley, I gave her a copy of my magazine) and my admiration of her work. Here’s to continuing that conversation!