Vanity Fair Scours the Globe, Beats the Bushes for Celebrites for Photo Sessions

In the November Vanity Fair, there’s an Annie Leibovitz 2007 Music Portfolio of folk singers. (Exclusive shaky-cam video here.) Evidently the wily buggers are very elusive, as contributing editor Lisa Robinson writes:

Once again, research consultant Deane Zimmerman made hundreds of phone calls and sent countless e-mails to track people down.

Last year, the Music Portfolio captured a number of county artists, and they too were a canny bunch:

research consultant Deane Zimmerman had to live through about 2,000 phone calls and an equal
number of e-mails to track everyone down.

In 2005, rappers were the focus, and yes, they were surprisingly skittish:

research consultant Deane Zimmerman tracked people down through relatives, lawyers, and friends

Is it really that hard to get well-known performers to agree to get their pictures taken by a well-known photographer for a well-known magazine?

Or is there some nepotism at work here?

(photograph by Kathryn MacLeod)