Light Trails

April 3rd, 2013

Landscape photographer Kevin Cooley has taken long exposure photos that capture airplanes leaving light trails across the sky as they take off or touch down at airports.

For his photo series ‘Nachtfluge’, Cooley traveled to major airports in the US to capture the images.

For each image, Cooley left the camera shutter open for up to four to five minutes—sometimes longer.

“Photography is by nature an exploration of time,” said Cooley in his artist statement. “The blink of an eye may be frozen by the shutter. Or in the case of this series, many minutes or even hours add up to construct a single image punctuated by the paths of commercial airplanes traversing the night skies.”

“These white streaks, the only aspects of the planes visible in the photos, are created by the landing and navigation lighting on every plane. Each line represents the amount of time it takes a commercial flight to pass through the frame.”

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