Arts Design

NIGHT IN THE CITY LOOKS PRETTY AMAZING NOW

VINCENT LAFORET

When night cloaks a city in darkness, a beauty emerges that is not seen in daylight. Swaddled in black velvet, white and yellow diamonds, sapphires, emeralds, and rubies pop through and twinkle.

You can feel the heartbeat of a city at nighttime. In the first hours, many beacons light the way for people as they finish up their work and guide them to their evening meals, friends, and families. As it grows later, the lights diminish, leaving only small signals of life, while it mostly slumbers.

Pulitzer Prize winning hotographer Vincent Laforet has captured the magnificence of New York City at night in an aerial photo series, entitled Gotham 7.5K.

Taken from a helicopter, more than 7,500 feet above its bustling streets, Laforet’s images highlight the structures and patterns of the buildings and streets. He secured special clearances to fly more than 50 missions above the busy city amidst its relatively crowded airspace.

Laforet’s images highlight the shapes of the city’s skyscrapers. Warnings pulse, in case pilots might venture too close. Luminous lifeblood rushes through the city’s intricate arteries of streets and highways.

To optimally position himself, Laforet strapped himself and his camera to a harnesses so he could lean out of the helicopter’s open door. He used fast shutter speeds and high ISOs to capture incredibly sharp photos of the city, even as the helicopter vibrated around him.

We marvel at Laforet’s striking images of intersecting streets and avenues, with nodes of light, reminiscent of “brain synapses.” In many of the photos, iconic skyscrapers like the Empire State Building and Chrysler Building seem to be lit from within, like neon sentinels rising out of the saturated city.

If you zoom in far enough, you can see the individual traffic-filled streets and a jam-packed Times Square. But zoomed out, the streets are indistinguishable and you’re left with a unified cityscape that is buzzing with life, as if it were a single organism. Or a live circuit board.

To Laforet, the project highlights New York City’s distinct urban charm, with its energy and ability to bring people together in a shared space. He doesn’t want the images to attract attention for their beauty alone, but rather for what they can teach us about society and community.

The Gotham 7.5K series was commissioned by Men’s Health Magazine. Laforet plans to produce similar series to highlight the nocturnal beauty of other cities, including Dubai, Paris, London, and Hong Kong, and more. We can’t wait to see!

In addition to his photography work, Laforet develops cutting edge technologies that aid filmmakers and photographers. He also serves as an advisor to companies such as Apple, Adobe, Canon, and Zeiss.

You can see more of Laforet’s incredible photos here.

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