photos by vincent laforet, who, after his pulitzer prize winning work covering the effects of american drone warfare in pakistan and the aftermath of hurricane katrina, decided to refocus his career on aerial landscapes (here las vegas, chicago, new york and london), which, given the heights taken in helicopters to achieve these shots (up to 11,000 feet), proved just as harrowing. 

“some veteran helicopter pilots actually refuse to go up there, they’re just not comfortable,” laforet said. “the first time i went up, it was scary, because i’ve never been that high [with] an open window or door, in a harness leaning out. and you see planes going right underneath you. your heart skips a beat. …a physicist explained a fall from that high up could last a terrifying forty one seconds.“ 

helicopters can be like flying blenders; they vibrate wildly, and laforet has to try to hold the camera steady while shooting at very low shutter speeds, often as the chopper goes into steep, banking turns.

notes laforet, "i’m looking down there and i’m trying to make order out of chaos, looking for patterns, geometry, colour, and light. …you literally perceive the depth, and the three dimensionality of the earth in a different way, and you see distances in a different manner, they look much smaller, much more within reach.”  

“there’s something very odd that happens when you go up in the air in that, ironically, it’s kind of intimate. …i think when you take a step back from anything, you see things more clearly. to take some distance from the street level view, and not getting lost in all the details that you see on the street level, you see that we’re all in this together.”