World-renowned astronaut Chris Hadfield, whom we had the pleasure of hearing speak about his experience on the International Space Station at last year's Beakerhead, crafts a compelling and intimate visual essay about the planet we live on in his new book You Are Here: Around the World in 92 Minutes. During his time beyond the earth's atmosphere, Hadfield–who served as the commander of the ISS and was the first Canadian to walk in space–took thousands of photos that present a unique perspective of our world from up above.
His book, which he calls “my guided tour of our planet, as if we were floating and looking out the spaceship window together,” depicts breathtaking aerial views of places like Venice, the Himalayas, Manhattan, and the Nile River. Our beloved cities, oceans, landscapes are reduced to kaleidoscopes of color and texture–beautiful, but so small in the grand scheme of the universe. According to the book description, You Are Here “opens a singular window on our planet, using remarkable photographs to illuminate the history and consequences of human settlement, the magnificence (and wit) of never-before-noticed landscapes, and the power of the natural forces shaping our world and the future of our species.”
To see more of the captivating photos that Hadfield captured of our planet, check out You Are Here, now available from retailers like Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
Above: Havana to Washington
Detroit, Michigan / Windsor, Ontario
Arica, Chile
Perereira Barreto, Brazil
San Francisco, California
Richat Structure (Eye of the Sahara), Mauritania
Manhattan, New York City
Venice, Italy
Himalayas
Great Salt Lake, Utah
Cairo, Jerusalem, and the Nile along the Mediterranean
