Nicole Kidman photographed by Annie Leibovitz

The White Stripes photographed by Annie Leibovitz

Jes and I went to the San Diego Museum of Art today to see the Annie Leibovitz exhibit. I saw ads for it in the New York Subway but it was no longer being shown at the Brooklyn Museum. Luckily, I was surfing the internet last weekend to find that it was in San Diego until today. Score!

For those who are unfamiliar with the name, Annie Leibovitz is most famous for her celebrity portraits featured mostly in Vanity Fair and Rolling Stone. More recently, she photographed the infamous Suri Cruise photos.

I met her once back in 1995 when I volunteered at one of her Vanity Fair photoshoots. It was a day-long photoshoot that involved photographing one very large group of Hollywood stars from back in the day. I actually met several of them including Eva Gabor, Gene Autry, Milton Berle, and even the 5th generation Lassie. (see photo on the left)  My job that day was to be Robert Young’s assistant.  He was the star of an old tv show called “Father Knows Best“.  My job wasn’t very hard since he was in a wheelchair and practically unaware of what was going on that day.  Another funny thing that happened that day was that I was asked out by one of Annie’s assistants.  Haha.  I don’t know if I ever told anyone this.  To make a long story short, I was way too naive and shy back then and turned him down that afternoon.

Anyway, back to the exhibit… It featured a mixture of celebrity portraits, her photos from Serbia, personal photos, and coverage of the Clinton and Bush administration. The rooms were pretty crowded but we managed to work our way through the gallery. For $10/person and an 80-mile drive it was not a bad way to spend a Sunday morning. What made it even more interesting was walking through the Earth Day festivities including a bunch of hippie propaganda and a Hare Krishna parade. Awesome.

On our way home, we stopped at Joe’s Crab Shack for a crabalicious feast. For $22.95, we got a platter of dungeoness, snow, and king crab. Yum yum. Their clam chowder was creamy and smokey and the fried shrimp was also very tasty. It sure did make driving home a little tougher with food coma and all but it was worth it.