Sydney’s city of light turns into sea of colour

Sydney, one of the world’s most photographed cities, has been captured from a very different angle | WATCH

Sydney, one of the world’s most photographed cities, has been captured from a very different angle.

Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Vincent Laforet has spent the past year capturing night-time aerial images of some of the world’s famous cities and is releasing the collection in the form of a new book, Air.

“It’s a series of photos of cities from around the world at high altitude at night,’’ Laforet says.

“What I found was that I was one of the first ­people, if not the first, to go up to 7500 feet (2.2km) or above and photograph these cities in a way that few people had seen before.” ­

With the shift to a range of lighting technologies, cities “come alive” with a spectrum of colours that illuminate roads and highways, which from above look like arteries and capillaries.

“This is the only time to capture something like this, with the mix between old, yellow-tinted lights and new, bright, blueish LED street lights,’’ he says.

The unique aerial perspective offers an insight into cities not available from ground level.

“When you’re down on the ground looking up at skyscrapers you feel pretty insignificant and powerless,’’ Laforet says. “When you’re at 7500 feet over a city, the city feels much more within grasp, and you can see how much smaller the world is.

“You don’t really see boundaries, you don’t see ­ethnicities, you don’t see borders or politics up there.”

Laforet was one of the first cinematographers to popularise the use of cheap digital SLR cameras as a high production value filmmaking tool.

His latest endeavour wasn’t nearly as thrifty, forcing him to lean on data storage company G-Technology to bankroll his year-long jaunt. “This is the furthest thing from a cheap way to capture images.”

He says he didn’t choose Sydney just for the Opera House or Harbour Bridge. “I came to Sydney because it’s one of my favourite cities. It’s got a very iconic series of images, the Opera House, Harbour Bridge, but it’s also got an incredible, unique ­terrain,’’ he says.

Patience is a virtue for Laforet, who first conceptualised the idea during childhood flights from London to New York and waiting for “technology to catch up’’.

“From the very first moment anybody sticks their head out of a plane you can see all these little lives, these little scenes as you’re landing,’’ he says.

“The cameras weren’t capable of doing it until a year or two ago. The sensors weren’t sensitive enough, and cities were much darker.”

“The best part of this project has been the reaction. You’d ­expect photographers and geeks to like these images.

“What’s been amazing is their grandmothers, their dentists, their real estate agents have forwarded the pictures, linked them on Facebook.”

Vincent Laforet’s book Air, which compiles the images from around the world, is available at laforetair.com