You’ve heard about having the world at your doorstep, but what about having the world in a water droplet? Serbian photographer Dusan Stojancevic has managed to do just that – and it’s not by using Photoshop.

Fifteen years ago, the long-time traveller decided to capture familiar tourist sites in an unprecedented way.

“I wanted to do something different,” he said. “I was trying to think about how to do something inventive.”

To do this, Stojancevic experimented with macro photography, turning his lens to tiny water droplets in front of city landmarks. The result is the capture of highly recognisable buildings, but bizarrely contained within the fragile walls of a bubble. The imaginative project began when he focused his camera on his hometown of Belgrade, where he quickly discovered that he’d stumbled across a point of view that nobody had thought of before.

His later results were equally stunning: Barcelona’s La Sagrada Familia faded into a dreamy haze, glimmering in the soft, watery light; the magnificence of Istanbul’s Blue Mosque was reflected tenfold in each water droplet. And finally, in the crowning glory of the project, Stojancevic captured the spirit of New York City through its soaring architecture, with shots of the Empire State Building, the Flatiron Building and Brooklyn Bridge shrunk into the tiny droplets.

“I knew I could do something different with it,” he said. “It’s the greatest city in the world.”

The project, entitled Microcosmos, aims to inspire and remind people of the beauty of our world.

“I want people to think about how small we are,” Stojancevic explained. “You look at something so small, and it looks like a globe, a sphere. When I take a picture, I want people to think about how there is something out there so much bigger than us.”

But it would take years for Stojancevic’s photos to be released to the world. He bided his time for the right moment to share his images, choosing to keep the series largely under wraps until now.

“Fifteen years ago, maybe only Serbian people would have seen it,” Stojancevic reflected. “But now, the internet allows you go around the world in only a few seconds.”

To date, Stojancevic has captured four cities. But he’s got no plans of stopping anytime soon.

“My job is the best job,” he said. “To travel, to meet other cultures – for me, that is a lifetime agenda, to show as many beautiful things in the world to as many people as I can.”