It is Luigi Ghirri himself who welcomes visitors at the entrance to the exhibition, in the first room entitled “Paesaggi di cartone”, thanks to a portrait in full black and white.

The tour itinerary unfolds along four rooms, but in reality it is intended to be very free. The first illustrated trips are those of the weekends in Emilia Romagna and the surrounding area, those that Ghirri defined as “minimal adventures”.

The photographer’s routes in the 70s gradually broaden, touching mainly destinations in nature: mountains, lakes and the sea and, at the same time, his reflection on people’s perception of the places they visit broadens. The theme of the third room is “Viaggi in casa”: two of his best-known photographic projects, Atlante and Identikit, are exhibited here.

These are ideas born and realized at home, because the journey always begins before crossing the threshold of the domestic walls. “Viaggi in Italia” is the theme of the fourth room.

During the 1980s, Ghirri traveled throughout most of Italy, producing various reports for tourist boards and the Touring Club Italiano. During this period, his switch to a medium format camera brought greater depth and clarity and more vivid colors to his photographs, although he continued to frame the landscapes in the same calm and measured way. Intended for a wide audience, these commissioned works combined the stereotypical images of the popular genre with other more unusual and particular ones.

Before going back and enjoying Ghirri’s journeys backwards, I suggest stopping in front of the video where James Lingwood and Adele Ghirri, the maestro’s youngest daughter, born only two years before her father’s death, talk about the process of selecting and building the exhibition.

The words of both are striking for the affection they express: “I think there is a lot of kindness in his gaze,” says Adele Ghirri. “He never attacks people by pointing the lens at them, not so much for a poetic question, but for an ethical one. His images tell a lot about who he was and how he looked at the world. For him, photography was not a mere technique, but a visual language.”