London's lights emerge from its streets in a multi-layered patchwork befitting the simultaneously ancient and modern metropolis in Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Vincent Laforet's newest addition to his AIR photo series, London 6K. The stunning helicoptor's-eye-view of Big Ben, The Shard, and Buckingham Palace came at the cost of a rough ride through England's notoriously unpredictable skies, says Laforet: "We got VERY lucky initially with one of the clearest and bluest skies you'll ever see in London. But by the time we took off… Just as if they were on cue, these massive clouds flew in, almost out of nowhere. It was almost comical. But at the same time my stress level shot up big time."
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On top of that, he was worrried that London's lack of rigid gridlines—the likes of which he captured to great effect in New York City, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and San Francisco—would diminish the effect of his technique, but in fact it was exactly the opposite. "The streets can best be described with one word: Chaotic," he explains. "There is a very special beauty within the mysterious curves of London's streets—and especially so at night." Part of the city's allure is the clash between its centuries-old architecture and the fresh infrastructure that rose from the ashes of the Blitzkrieg in WWII, a contrast that's even more visible from the air than on the streets.With trips planned for Berlin and Paris in the coming weeks, Laforet has big ambitions for his new, stabilization sensor-enabled techniques for capturing humanity's greatest architectural accomplishments after dark. To support his ongoing efforts, you can preorder his stunning book on the AIR website.Soak in past, present, and—in the case of an image that Laforet points out looks like Neo Tokyo from Blade Runner—future beauty of the UK megacity in his new images, and check out some behind-the-scenes footage from the shoot below.
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