Editor's Letter

Still Magic

Remarkably, for all the technological wizardry of the late 20th century, the impact of still photography remains unchallenged in its intensity and power. Vietnam may have been a television war, but just as the defining images of World War were shots of U.S. soldiers raising the American flag at Iwo Jima and the Soviet flag being planted over the shell of the Reichstag, we remember Vietnam through photographs: a young Vietnamese girl fleeing a napalm attack; General Nguyen Ngoc Loan coldly executing a Vietcong suspect at close range; Mary Ann Vecchio grieving over the body of a fallen student at Kent State. Even amidst the visual razzmatazz of the video-digital age, one of the most revolutionary TV series of the last half-decade was Ken Burns's The Civil War—which was made up almost exclusively of 130-year-old stills.

Vanity Fair's unrivaled stable of principal photographers— led by Annie Leibovitz, Herb Ritts, Snowdon, Helmut Newton, Jonathan Becker, Michel Comte, Dafydd Jones, and Firooz Zahedi—carry on this tradition, with the added elements of trying to marry journalism with portraiture. Leibovitz's October 1994 portfolio of the New Establishment, for instance, defined and captured a fundamental shift in American society as it entered the Information Age. In this month's issue, Ritts's startling cover shoot of Courtney Love turns a grunge icon into a Rossetti angel—and then back into a rock 'n' roll hell-raiser. Leibovitz offers a memorable series of images that capture the creative spirit of theatrical artist Robert Wilson. Snowdon's dynamic blackand-white photograph of Maurice Saatchi on page 117 is a rare portrait of the elusive genius who built the world's largest advertising company. And Jones documents Vanity Fair's Oscar-night celebration with true paparazzi flair; like Weegee, he has an innate ability to fade into a crowd—all the better to catch his subjects slightly off guard. This month also brings Michael Roberts's take on Ian Schrager and Philippe Starck's latest hotel confection, the Delano in Miami, Dewey Nicks's exuberant record of the eccentric world of designer Isaac Mizrahi, and Nigel Parry's portrait of Larry King. As well, we welcome a newcomer to Vanity Fair, David Seidner, who worked for years at Yves Saint Laurent while building his reputation as an art photographer. Ultimately, Seidner's elegant portraits of the daughters of billionaire duty-free tycoon Robert Miller, on page 138, are more reminiscent of the paintings of Gainsborough and Sargent than of any modern medium.