No question about it.

The current issue of Vanity Fair has an extract from Annie Leibovitz’s book illustrated with three superb photographs – of Demi Moore, Arnold Schwarzenegger and HM Queen Elizabeth II, and a not so good one of Mick Jagger. Read it here.

I was very much taken with Ms.Leibovitz’s modesty and straight forwardness. I hope you will be too. Surely, there is no more famous photographer working today?

The current issue also has a fine survey of the great photographers who have been published in Vanity Fair over the past 95 years, by Christopher Hitchens. Is there a finer English writer today? Berenice Abbott, Helmut Newton, George Hoyningen-Huene, Harry Benson, Cecil Beaton, Bruce Weber, Edward Steichen – they are all there.

And finally a piece on Vladimir Putin with a penetrating portrait by photographer Stéphane Lavoué. I was about to write what I really think of this fellow but decided against it. I do not own a gun and feel, if I said anything bad, I would have to meet those burly guys with dark glasses and ill fitting suits suitably prepared. So, for once, discretion is the better part of valor.