Vincent Laforet gives an incredible TED Talk about his AIR Project

Over the past year, photographer Vincent Laforet has been capturing stunning images of cities around the world for his AIR project.

Strapped into a harness and hanging from a helicopter, Laforest has travelled around the globe to New York, Barcelona, Berlin, Sydney and more to capture the intricate networks of city streets and lights that we’ve carved into our planet.

Resulting from the year-long endeavor is AIR, a 228-page book that beautifully shows off the colorful masterpieces the veteran photographer captured.

Recently, Laforet shared a presentation at TEDxSanFrancisco that dove into the back-story of the AIR project and how it came to be.

In the speech, Laforet shared the incredible lessons he learned while shooting the world from a perspective few humans will ever see. His thoughts on the experience are poignant and the metaphors and connections he makes between inanimate objects and our metropolitian architecture are striking to say the least.

The presentation is as philisophical in nature as it is visual, so if you’re anything like myself and enjoy hoarding quotes, pull out a notebook. Sit back, put the video on full screen and enjoy the show.

You can purchase AIR on Laforet’s website. Unsigned costs $60 and a signed edition $100. Considering how impressive the images are and Laforet’s constant desire for perfection, both options are small prices to pay for a coffee table book that will drop jaws everytime someone opens it.