Why Annie Leibovitz is still asking what women look like

Annie Leibovitz isn’t just a photographer; she’s one of the people who helps us see the world for what it is. For over 50 years, her portraits have shaped our collective imagination of fame, power and personality; from John and Yoko’s tender last embrace to Whoopi Goldberg submerged in a bath of milk.

But in 1999, Leibovitz turned her camera towards something bigger than celebrity: she asked, "What do women actually look like now?" The result was Women, a collaboration with her partner, the writer Susan Sontag; a sweeping portrait of a generation, seen through Leibovitz’s empathetic lens.

More than 25 years later, she’s asking the same question again. Annie Leibovitz: Women, 2025 Edition (Phaidon, $99.95/£79.95) brings together over 250 portraits spanning three decades, along with an entirely new volume of photographs that reflect how womanhood has evolved in the 21st century.

To mark the launch, Leibovitz will make a rare public appearance at London’s Barbican Hall on November 24. An Evening with Annie Leibovitz promises stories, reflections and behind-the-lens insights from one of photography’s most influential figures.

A visual manifesto

The original Women was born from a long-running conversation between Leibovitz and Sontag. Sontag wrote the accompanying text—part essay, part manifesto—declaring: “Each of these pictures must stand on its own, but the ensemble says: so this is what women are now.”

Leibovitz's subjects were all women who were redefining public life at the turn of the century; they included Hillary Clinton, the French-American artist Louise Bourgeois, and associate justice of the Supreme Court, Sandra Day O’Connor.

The new two-volume edition (one refreshed, one brand new) continues that dialogue, adding present-day icons such as Billie Eilish, Rihanna, Michelle Obama, and Serena and Venus Williams.

Essays by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Gloria Steinem accompany the portraits, joining Sontag in shaping the intellectual backbone of the project.

The result? A book that feels both like a retrospective and a reinvention; a continuation of the same question that began a quarter of a century ago.

The idea of “woman”

For all the celebrity portraits and magazine covers— from Rolling Stone to Vanity Fair to royal commissions—Leibovitz’s best work has always been about intimacy. She has a knack for capturing people as they are, not as they’re expected to be. And that’s the quiet magic of Women. These aren’t polished icons, but people caught somewhere between strength and vulnerability.

It’s a reminder, too, that portraiture isn’t just about light, lenses or composition; it’s about trust. Built on empathy, Leibovitz’s portraits feel both grand and unguarded. It's a masterclass in what happens when a subject feels seen, rather than 'on display'.

Because let’s face it; we're currently living in a world that's drowning in images. Everyone is their own portraitist now, curating their identity one Instagram selfie at a time. Leibovitz’s slower, more reflective approach stands in sharp contrast to all of that. Her work isn’t about freezing a moment so much as questioning how that moment is seen. The portraits in Women do exactly that. They capture power and poise, but also exhaustion, uncertainty, humour, and humanity. They look like real life.

And that’s, essentially, what makes this project so special for me. The Women, 2025 Edition isn’t about nostalgia. It’s simply a continuation of a lifelong conversation about visibility, equality, and the profound act of being seen on your own terms.

Annie Leibovitz: Women, 2025 Edition (Phaidon, $99.95/£79.95) is available from 4 November. An Evening with Annie Leibovitz takes place on 24 November at Barbican Hall, London. Tickets: cost from £133.95 (including a signed copy of the book) from fane.co.uk.