The photographer made famous for taking the last pictures of John Lennon came to Harvard Square's Wordsworth Bookstore yesterday as part of a national tour to promote her new collection of portraits, Women.

Artist Annie Leibovitz--who earned fame in the 1970s for her work for the then-fledging Rolling Stone--signed copies of her book and answered questions from a crowd that overflowed the bottom floor of the shop.

Leibovitz's art has infused American media over the past 30 years, appearing most recently in the American Express advertising campaign, in addition to the covers of Vogue, Vanity Fair and The New Yorker.

Her newest collection of photographs, most of which have "nothing more in common than that their subjects are women," captures American womanhood through a range of both ordinary and extraordinary females.

In the question-and-answer setting, Leibovitz said Women started out in 1996 as a follow-up to Leibovitz's book on the Atlanta Olympics. She said the theme and inspiration came from author Susan Sontag, who wrote the essay preface to the book.

Initially, Leibovitz said, she found the theme "frightening, like trying to capture the ocean."

She said she tried to photograph the women as she imagined them to look. While working in Las Vegas for the New Yorker special issue on women, Leibovitz said she called a few showgirls to her studio for a shot.

She said she still remembers her shock upon seeing the women who the night before had appeared "like they were in armor," now unrecognizable in their ordinary dress, looking undistinguishable from "schoolteachers."