With all due respect, who can say what kind of work is "easier" and what kind is "difficult"? I find landscapes ridiculously hard, whereas my husband finds them very easy to shoot well. I find photographing kids to be easy and natural, while it wouldn't be so easy for him (outside of our own kids.) You can only judge what is easy or hard for you, not for everyone.
That said, I know it's difficult for AL to bring out a spark and a connection wiith her subjects. Before you pounce on me for saying that, I know it because she herself said so in a TV interview yesterday. She readily admitted that unlike a few other prominent photographers, she has a hard time connecting with people when photographing them. That's precisely what I see in her photography; it's a record of appearances. That's why I'm not terribly impressed with it. She does use her assistants to try to bring the spark out of her subjects, but it's not the same thing.
Part of the difficulty in photographing people anywhere is that you're rarely dealing with just the actual photography. There are almost always parents, onlookers, constraints, and other distractions to be dealt with. Most photographers don't work with an army of assistants who are assigned to deal with the majority of the distractions. When I photograph people, I am the bouncer, the entertainer, the therapist, the wardrobe designer, the make-up artist, the PR person, the legal analyst, the gopher, the film-loader, the connection-maker, everything. Nobody to do it for me, and the success of the work depends on my ability to wear all those hats. And I have to do it all in an hour or two, not the two weeks granted to AL to photograph TomKateSuri. Imagine what I could do if half those items were taken off my job description.
I'm not saying she is an untalented photographer, only that what she does just doesn't impress me. I don't find her work to be insightful or moving. Colorful and fun, absolutely.
