- Born in 1949, Annie Leibovitz first came to public prominence through her work in "Rolling Stone" magazine, where she launched her professional career in 1970. Her first assignment was an auspicious one, when publisher Jann Wenner assigned her to shoot a portrait of former Beatle John Lennon. Since 1983, she has been contributing photographer at "Vanity Fair." Leibovitz has photographed countless luminaries, ranging from presidents to pop stars. Among her most notable portraits is the famed "Vanity Fair" cover of a naked --- and extremely pregnant --- Demi Moore. Honored as a Commandeur des Ordre des Artes et des Lettres by the government of France, Leibovitz's varied work as a portrait photographer can be seen in her book, "A Photographer's Life: 1990-2005," which includes an array of her best-known celebrity portraits.
- Yousuf Karsh is generally acknowledged as one of the most prominent portrait photographers of the 20th century, famed for his black-and-white profiles of such famous figures as Ernest Hemingway and Sir Winston Churchill (a famous 1941 portrait of an exceptionally grumpy-looking Churchill supposedly resulted from Karsh grabbing his trademark cigar from his mouth). Many of Karsh's most notable photographs appeared in "Life" magazine, with subjects including Andy Warhol, President John F. Kennedy, artist Pablo Picasso and Albert Einstein. Karsh died in 2002.
- Richard Avedon was born in New York City in 1923, and, by the mid-1940s was the staff photographer for "Harper's Bazaar." Avedon was renowned for his photography of the annual fashion collections in Paris, which he shot every year from 1947 until 1984. In addition to his fashion photography, Avedon was regarded as one of the world's premier portrait photographers. Among his most iconic photographs are his 1947 portrait of Marilyn Monroe and his psychedelia-infused 1967 portraits of the Beatles, although he was equally regarded in the art world for his stark photos of people on the edges of society, such as drifters and institutionalized psychiatric patients. Avedon died in 2004.
- After beginning his photography career in the late 1970s. Herb Ritts' acclaimed celebrity portraits have appeared in such magazines as "Interview," "Vanity Fair," "Vogue" and "Rolling Stone." Utilizing both color and black and white, Ritts' subjects included writers Charles Bukowski and William S. Burroughs, musician Dizzy Gillespie, physicist Stephen Hawking, actor Jack Nicholson and NBA great Michael Jordan, to name just a few. Ritts died in 2002, although his portraiture remains influential.