Annie Leibovitz- Disney Dream

Annie Leibovitz was born in Westbury, Connecticut. Leibovitz is the third of six children and is a third-generation American whose great-grandparents were Russian Jews. Her father's parents had emigrated from Romania. Her father, Sam Leibovitz, was a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Air Force; her mother, Marilyn Leibovitz, was a modern dance instructor. The family moved frequently with her father's duty assignments, and she took her first pictures when he was stationed in the Philippines during the Vietnam War.

In high school, she became interested in various artistic endeavours, and began to write and play music. She attended the San Francisco Art Institute, where she studied painting. For several years, she continued to develop her photography skills while working various jobs, including a stint on a kibbutz in Amir, Israel, for several months in 1969.

She is best know for taking the last photographs of John Lennon before he died.

In 2007, she was recruited by Disney to promote Disneyland and Walt Disney World's Year of a Million Dreams campaign, Leibovitz persuaded her famous friends to dress up as classic Disney characters. The first images in this ongoing series appeared in the March issues of Vogue, Vanity Fair, W, GQ, Conde Nast Traveller, Cookie and The New Yorker.

Scarlett Johansson was the first A-lister to sign on. She plays Cinderella, dashing down a staircase with the castle aglow in the distance. The image was photographed on the steps of the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial on New York's Riverside Drive with Disney World's Cinderella castle digitally imposed behind her.

The Alice photo shoot took place in a field on Leibovitz's farm in upstate New York. The artist says:

"We had some teacups from Disneyland shipped in. I hadn't realized that they each weighed several hundred pounds. We had to place them with a forklift. It took a whole day to do that, and then I couldn't move them, because the field was wet."

Leibovitz, who soon after dressed another set of celebrities as Peter Pan, Tinker Bell and Little Mermaid Ariel, approached British soccer superstar (and new American import) David Beckham, with the concept of playing Sleeping Beauty's Prince. Not surprisingly, Beckham was game, and the image was photographed near a lake outside Madrid, where he had been playing soccer for the team Real Madrid. The castle superimposed in the background is from Disneyland Paris.

Opinion

I absolutely love these images. They are very creative even though they have been digitally enhanced. Each image also comes with its own catch phrase emulating an idea that the Disney company believes about its parks. The care and attention to the images emphasizes and make the viewer believe in the portraits messages. The parks indeed become places "Where dreams run free" and "Where every Cinderella story comes true."

I encourage any company looking to have a successful advertising campaign to look at Disney's care to detail as well as graphics and messages.

Also, remember what your brand says about you.