NEW YORK — Annie Leibovitz is not short of superfans. Last night as the line of autograph-seekers grew longer during the opening of "Pilgrimage," the new three-day Pace Gallery Leibovitz show, ARTINFO even spotted Anna Wintour handing her credit card to the front desk to procure her own copy of the accompanying book. Was Wintour a fan of the new body of work? Of course! “The fact she could turn her camera onto such a different kind of a subject with equal if not more emotion and brilliance just shows what a true artist she is,” the famed editor enthused.

Vogue was one of the sponsors of the evening, but for a Vogue event it was a surprisingly low-key (perhaps owing to the fact that the smart set was down in Miami). To be sure, the fashion world was present in full force, with designers like Carolina Herrera, Thakoon, and Cynthia Rowley, as well as formidable Vogue editors Hamish Bowles and Wintour circulating the room. Pace artist Chuck Close was there, too, sporting a very bright, deep blue and chartreuse African-print inspired suit (or were they pajamas?). But the party seemed unburdened by the usual fanfare, loudly cackling gossip, or booming background music, instead focusing on the work of the woman of the hour.

It was the opening of a stunning new body of work that departs from Liebovitz’s signature portrait photography, focusing instead on images of historic Americana: landscapes of Walden Pond; remnants of the lives of Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson; the Gettysburg battlefield; and glass plates of images of Abraham Lincoln from the National Archives among them. Leibovitz was a highly visible but humbly accessible presence in the gallery — that is, right until the final mad dash for guests’ last-ditch effort to get a signed copy of her book. But she was gracious enough to chat for a minute as the masses were closing in, and of course, we made the most of it.

Was this project more than a physical journey for you — as the title suggests — in that it was a departure, turning your lens away from portrait subjects and onto the landscape, as well a complete work in digital? And perhaps it was also a vacation, since you were only working under your own instruction?

That’s like four questions in there!

Well yes, we have to economize.

It’s an idea that originated when Susan Sontag and I were thinking of doing some traveling together, and then she died. You know, I was not having the best time of my life. I was having a difficult time, and I started to think about the places I wanted to travel to. But I didn’t know if I could do it. I started with Niagara Falls. And something happened there that inspired me to go forward with the work. I was watching my children skip over to the falls, and I stood over behind them, so when they were looking at them they were kind of mesmerized and I took their picture. That was the cover of the book. So then I started thinking of that and Emily Dickinson’s house in Amherst, and I made this crazy list of about 12 places.

I started in the last couple years. I just made time to go off and look at these places, and find this imagery that was meaningful to me. It wasn’t always a room. A room didn’t always resonate. I finally started to come across objects, like Lincoln’s hat, which I loved, or Emily Dickinson’s dress. I had to sort of learn to photograph objects. I wanted to feel emotional, not just, you know…

It didn’t feel counter-intuitive?

It was! It was hard. I’m not a tripod person.

And are you a digital person now?

This is a completely digital project. That was the other thing. I talk in the book about how I was intrigued about how digital — you needed very little light to take pictures.

"Pilgrimage" is on view at the Pace Gallery through December 3. It moves to the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington D.C., on view from January 20 through May 20.