If you’ve not read Friday’s post to The Online Photographer, don’t miss it. The Annie Leibovitz picture printed there is certainly a contender, though as it says it isn’t really a photograph, but a bad Photoshop job combining several photographs to make up something that is bad on almost every conceivable level.
The actual photography is trite. The Photoshop is terrible (so in Paris it might win a prize.) The parts don’t really fit together. The concept is lousy. It’s sexist. Kitsch. But Mike really puts it much better than me, and why waste my time. Elsewhere on PDN Online you can see some of the incredible bills that Leibovitz gets for the work of stylists for her pictures, and this picture undoubtedly involved a lot of similarly expensive work by a team of the highest paid pros in the business.
Also on PDN is a series of links to Ad-Week’s 2008 freakiest ads contest, and although you’ve missed the chance to vote in the preliminary rounds (but can still see the contestants) the final round voting starts on Monday. Your choice for Ad-Freak 2008 is between “A headless person, a disembodied tongue, a guy who likes kissing glass, and a nude 86-year-old woman.” The old lady is I think quite sweet, though I’d have preferred her to keep her clothes on (but it’s harmless enough), but the whole tongue thing really sucks.
Annie’s isn’t the worst photograph ever made. There are guys (mainly guys) who churn out worse examples day by day that are hideously bad on a level she doesn’t compete on – though I admit here she is trying quite hard. I won’t post a link, but you could try typing ‘glamour photography’ into Google and take a look at some of the 1,470,000 hits.