Turning the viewfinder around...

Wednesday night's premiere of American Masters "Annie Leibovitz: Life Through a Lens"-- the show airs at 8 and is repeated at 10:30 p.m., Thursday -- is one of those programs that has received quite a bit of buzz in the mainstream press. Be more Tuned In has pulled together some of the most interesting pieces.

An insightful look into how an artist ultimately confronts life and loss through a lens, Barbara Leibovitz's smart documentary on her sister Annie follows her evolution from bubbly art school student to denizen of American photography's upper echelon. ... Her mind's eye and the lens have melded into one for her -- an occupational hazard? -- and what others carry as memories, she possesses as snapshots and portraits, in which hues and lighting are discussed as much as the emotions that enveloped a death or a day at the pool."

-Phil Gallo, Variety

"Last year, the American Society of Magazine Editors voted on the 40 greatest magazine covers of the past 40 years.
Their No. 1 choice was the Jan. 22, 1981, cover of Rolling Stone, featuring a photograph of a nude John Lennon curled infant-like around a fully clothed Yoko Ono - an image made almost unbearably poignant by the fact that, just a few hours after it was taken, Lennon was shot and killed.
The No. 2 choice, the Aug. 1991 cover of Vanity Fair, bears a nude photo of a very different sort: a lustrous, very pregnant Demi Moore, one hand shielding her opulent breasts and the other supporting her globe of a belly.
If there's anything more striking than the pictures themselves, it's that both were taken by the same woman."

-Joanne Weintraub, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

"Ms. Leibovitz has a great deal of fun with her camera but never biting, seditious fun. Her pictures do not denigrate or disparage. Instead they document the celebrity circus with an acutely literal vision, submitting the famous to playfully acrobatic postures and various acts of clownishness.
Profilers and portraitists are not generally among society's most forthcoming, and so it is refreshing to witness Ms. Leibovitz speak openly about her life."

-Gina Bellafante, New York Times