When a magazine sends a photographer to take a picture of a celebrity, it is paying the photographer for a photo that’s good enough to run in the magazine. The magazine is expecting a certain standard of photograph, and it’s a commercial transaction. Anything the photographer contributes above that is a gift. The inspiration, the lighting, or the surprise—that’s a gift from the photographer to his client and to the readers of the magazine. Annie Leibovitz built her career around this gift. She was hired to do celebrity photographs, but she kept pushing the limits. I would imagine that some of
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