The brightest cities in the world, all captured by one photographer

Photographer travels the globe to capture ground-based shots of the world’s most-lit communities

We’ve all seen the shot from space of what the world’s cities look like at night, with the most populous regions glowing brightest.

What’s not often seen is what these communities like from the ground. As part of a photo essay entitled Lux, photographer Christina Seely set out from her home in San Francisco to travel the globe and capture what 45 of the world’s brightest cities looks like from the ground.

Boston, Massachusetts

And while this might sound like an art project, the purpose is to shine a light, if you will, on light pollution. Specifically, it’s meant to examine the disconnect we ignore between the beauty and convenience of artificial light, and the impact that our over-use of this technology has on our surrounding environment.

Barcelona, Spain

“These economically and politically powerful regions not only have the greatest impact on the night sky but this brightness reflects a dominant cumulative impact on the planet,” Seely explains in her artist's statement.

She adds: “For most of human history, man-made light has signified hope and progress within local and global arenas. In this project, light also paradoxically denotes an index of the added complex negative human impacts on the health and future of the planet.”

Lux took Seely five years to complete. All 45 of her photographs, which were determined based on data provided by NASA, are based in Western Europe, Japan, and the United States.

Below are some shots from her collection. A link to her site where you can view the full essay is located at the very bottom of the page.

Seattle, Washington