Born October 2: Annie Leibovitz

Sixty-three, mother of three young girls, and the world's most famous photographer: Given the boldness and confidence of her pictures, you might expect Leibovitz to be brash and overbearing, but in public she's very thoughtful and, despite her decades of success, she can sound uncertain about her work. Giving a slideshow of her images at a Chelsea gallery in November 2006, many times she looked at the screen and said, "I'm not sure that even is a photograph," saying instead it was simply a record of the moment. After Susan Sontag, her partner of fifteen years, died at the end of 2004, Leibovitz worried that she had never truly captured her on film. (Her favorite photo of Susan is this one by Peter Hujar.) She told wry stories about Susan complaining that Annie never took any pictures of them at home or on vacation, and how Susan always ended up mad when they did a shoot for her book jacket photos. Leibovitz gave birth at 51 to her first child, Sarah Cameron Leibovitz, whom she named in honor of pioneering photographer Julia Margaret Cameron. Via a surrogate mother, five months after Sontag's death she had twin daughters, Susan and Samuelle, in honor of her father Samuel. Of her many books, the one with the most text and the best stories is Annie Leibovitz at Work.