(ANSA) - Milan, November 20 - A unique retrospective of work by Steve McCurry, one of the world's best known living photojournalists, has opened in Milan in a show specially designed to pack a punch.

Instead of being hung on the walls, the American photographer's powerful images have been illuminated and suspended in mid-air or set on free-standing screens in the darkened recesses of the Palazzo della Ragione.

Visitors wander through a shadowy 'virtual forest' of 200 huge images which include McCurry's most famous photo: his iconic shot of an Afghan refugee with piercing sea-green eyes that later sparked a years-long search to find her again.

''McCurry is one of the greatest legends in the history of photography,'' said curator Tanja Solci at the opening of the show. ''I didn't want spectators to find themselves in his world without taking part in it''.

The exhibition's designer, Peter Bottazzi, said the photos had been arranged so that visitors could ''live'' them.

''We could never have relegated them to the walls like young ladies at the edge of a room waiting to be invited to dance,'' he said.

Philadelphia-born McCurry chose each of the photos specifically for the Milan show, which covers trips to warzones including Afghanistan, Beirut and Cambodia as well as his other travels over the last 30 years.

''I wanted to give the viewer a visceral sense of the beauty and wonder that I've found before me,'' McCurry said of his selection.

The highlight of the show is his Afghan Girl, which he took by chance in 1984 in a Pakistan refugee camp where the girl had fled following the death of her parents during the Soviet-Afghan war.

The image of the 12-year-old orphan appeared on the cover of National Geographic magazine and almost two decades later was voted the most recognised photo in its 114-year history.

McCurry repeatedly tried to find the nameless girl again during trips to the area, but it was not until 2002 that a team from the magazine tracked her down to a remote village in Afghanistan and identified her.

Then a 30-year-old mother of three, Sharbat Gula had no idea her face had become an iconic image but remembered McCurry snapping her since it was the first time anyone had taken her photo.

''Her skin is weathered; there are wrinkles now, but she is still as striking as she was all those years ago,'' McCurry said after he met Gula to photograph her again.

Other memorable images in the show include those documenting three days in McCurry's life when he came back from meeting the Dalai Lama in Tibet in time to witness the destruction of the World Trade Centre from his New York studio window.

The unusual exhibition also includes three video screens on which visitors are presented with a non-stop sequence of photos taken by McCurry over the years of monsoons and the effects of AIDS as well as his classic portraits.

''If you wait, people will forget your camera and the soul will drift up into view,'' the 59-year-old photojournalist says.

Steve McCurry: Sud-Est runs at the Palazzo della Ragione in Milan until January 31.