"The swirling question is if, and when, he will return to golf. Most observers think he will, but with companies such as Accenture, Gillette, and Tag Heuer basically fleeing for the hills, he would simply be a golfer trying to win a tournament. His focus is such that he can likely still win, whatever the insanity surrounding him, but life will be different. Donald Trump thinks he will come back 'bigger than ever,' a sure sign the opposite will happen."

The photographer, 59, declined to comment. Friends and colleagues said that despite her many successes, Ms. Leibovitz has been shadowed by a long history of less than careful financial dealings. Public records show that in the last two years, Ms. Leibovitz has faced tax liens of $1.4 million and two lawsuits claiming that she has not paid more than $700,000 in bills for photography services. "The mind that can take these extraordinary pictures is not necessarily the same mind that is a perfect money manager," said Graydon Carter, the editor of Vanity Fair.

A recent series of personal issues has made navigating her already complex life more difficult, close associates said. In the last five years, Ms. Leibovitz lost her father, her mother and her companion, Susan Sontag; added two children to her family and oversaw the costly and controversial renovation of three properties in Greenwich Village. Charlie Scheips, the former director of the Conde Nast photo archive who helped Ms. Leibovitz make a deal last year with an auction house to sell prints of her photographs, said that when he spoke to her recently, he was told: "I'm really under the gun. I've got three daughters, I lost my spouse. I've got too many jobs to do and it's chaos."

Matthew Hiltzik, a spokesman for Ms. Leibovitz, pointed a finger at the lender suing Ms. Leibovitz, Art Capital Group, a company in New York with a history of litigation over its boutique loans to artists, art dealers and collectors, who pledge their art works as collateral. "Annie is in the same shoes as many other people involved with Art Capital," Mr. Hiltzik said. The firm, with offices in a former Sotheby's building on Madison Avenue, has been compared to a high-end pawn shop, and it has sued and been sued by a litany of clients and associates, including Julian Schnabel, its former lawyers and ex-employees.

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Friends and colleagues agree that it is not a taste for luxuries that has caused Ms. Leibovitz's financial difficulties. Although well known for extravagant spending while on assignment, those expenses are paid by her employers. "Annie is not an expensive liver herself," said Tina Brown, who edited Vanity Fair from 1984 to 1992, where Ms. Leibovitz began working after her early years at Rolling Stone magazine. "She hangs out with her kids. She doesn’t hang out in the lights at the parties."

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In Life Through a Lens, a documentary about Ms. Leibovitz directed by her sister Barbara Leibovitz, Jann Wenner, the founder of Rolling Stone, said that he thought her move to Vanity Fair in 1983 might be good for her because she was at her "peak drug use and was so irresponsible, was leaving rental cars everywhere and not turning things in on time."

"Everyone outside of America liked it a little bit more because that's more like the style, but the States are really conservative. guess I just had to deal with that and just realise that I got to work with an amazing photographer," Miley explained.

"And that's what I want to do with my life. I would love to be a photographer. She was amazing and so talented and her lighting... I would love to work with her again. But I realise I'm just a kid.

Miley has been raising eyebrows over her relationship with 20-year-old underwear model Justin Gaston. But she insists she isn't at all like her Hannah Montana character, arguing that silly teenage crushes are just so boring. "I'm surrounded by good-looking guys, the models, the actors, this and that, so it ends up not being about that," she insisted. "It ends up being about the personality and the way someone treats you.

"Also, being around so many actors, I feel a lot of people treat them really badly. If anyone treats people really sweet then that's what's really appealing." 'My parents are really chilled with me until I give them a reason not to be'.