In 1969, from a distance of several thousand miles, a photograph was taken of the planet Earth. We saw its spherical form isolated against the blackness of outer space and we were amazed. Luigi Ghirri, an Italian draftsman working in his home town Modena, saw it and thought: “This is a picture which contains all pictures ever taken, a picture of everything we see and are, and yet a picture which shows us nothing.” Ghirri was challenged by the image, and for more than ten years now he has explored the world from his microcosmic viewfinder.

Ghirri’s work, which he calls a photography of hieroglyphics,