Photographer Annie Leibovitz gets more personal with ‘Pilgrimage’

She has photographed a pregnant Demi Moore in the nude, Whoopi Goldberg in a milk bath, and June and Johnny Cash in one of their last portraits.

Annie Leibovitz is probably one of the most prolific and admired photographers of her time. Known for her eccentric and moving portraits as well as her work with Rolling Stone and Vanity Fair magazines, Leibovitz’s work is instantly recognizable by nearly everyone who knows photography.

Her latest photographs, found in her new book “Pilgrimage,” are not the usual celebrity fare. They are far more personal, capturing places and things important to the photographer. Leibovitz describes the project as one in which she chose the subjects she photographed “simply because they meant something to her.” And surprisingly, the end results are images of things that will mean a lot to everyone.

Leibovitz made trips to the homes of her favorite authors, including Emily Dickinson, Virginia Woolf, Louisa May Alcott, Emerson and Thoreau. She photographed a beautiful white dress of Dickinson’s, highlighting the details in what at first seems to be a simple gown. She captured the beauty of Walden Pond, where Thoreau drew inspiration for his famed writings. She also grasped the tragic and intense beauty of the river where Woolf drowned herself.

The photographer also visited historical places in America, including the Civil War battlefield of Gettysburg and Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello. She includes photographs of Abraham Lincoln’s draft of the Gettysburg Address, as well as the hat and gloves he was wearing the night of his assassination — powerful images that still show evidence of the slain president’s blood.

National Parks are represented in this collection — from Old Faithful in Yellowstone National Park to Niagara Falls, which is shown in awe-inspiring color on the cover of the book.

Other images represented include Elvis Presley’s Graceland, Georgia O’Keefe’s New Mexican desert, Sigmund Freud’s London home, and Marion Anderson’s beautiful concert dress she wore on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. And with each photograph, Leibovitz describes what the process of capturing the image meant to her and why she chose each one.

This book is a powerful representation not only of Annie Leibovitz and her influences, but also of historical events and places. This is a book to be savored again and again.