The figure of Luigi Ghirri belongs among those, not in truth very numerous, modern and contemporary personalities who lucidly proposed, through their work, a new way of looking, and therefore of thinking. This book accompanies the reader in discovering the themes and changes that ran through his artistic path, examining his main publications in the light of the essayistic work that constantly accompanied his photographic practice, providing precious help to understand it. Starting from his early shots alongside the Emilian conceptual artists, Ghirri crossed the also originally conceptual project-based work of the 1970s to arrive at the poetic-cognitive inflection of the 1980s. The idea he pursued with consistency over two decades was to practise the photographer’s craft while moving away from a traditional documentary conception as well as from a purely aestheticising approach to the image: reflection and emotion, cognitive commitment and sentimental involvement, full adherence to the present and the ability to perceive, as something tangible here and now, the stratification of the culture and the work of those who came before us in shaping the landscape.