ANNA ON ANNIE ] The editor on her favorite photographer's most personal body of work

"...when I leafed through Pilgrimage, I was astounded. There is an intimacy and quietness and reflectiveness that she hadn't revealed before, and one senses that this is an artist who was working through a challenging period in her life; her partner, Susan Sontag, had passed away, there was highly public and critical coverage of her financial woes, and all the while she was faced with raising her three daughters alone. For a notorious workaholic, Annie perhaps unsurprisingly looked for solace in her photography, choosing to focus on the natural world, traveling here and abroad to shoot landscapes and still lifes that are by turns epic, desolate, and arid, turning them into a balm to heal her feelings. I don't think she will mind my saying this, but for a woman whom I've never thought of as particularly peaceful, Pilgrimage suggests Annie has achieved a much-needed state of grace."-- Anna Wintour, Letter from the editor, Vogue, November 2011

Some of the photographs here.