Before We Explain the World

Photography by Lu Heng

1Leaving the Known

A World from One Seat

Story 4 of 51 · 8 photographs

The cabin is narrow, the view beyond it almost without limit. Follow the wing out into the clouds. From the small space of a seat, the photographs open onto very different distances.

  1. Seats and windows inside an aircraft; Empty aircraft seats and oval windows catch warm light inside a quiet cabin.
    15

    Seats and windows inside an aircraft

  1. Light beside a window; Sunlight enters beside a tall window, drawing a bright vertical strip across a quiet interior.
    16

    Light beside a window

  2. A white aircraft wing stretches above clouds beneath a blue sky.
    17

    A wing above the clouds

  1. Beyond a dark wing, a thin orange band separates clouds from blue sky.
    18

    An orange line at the horizon

  2. An aircraft wing at sunset; The curved tip of an aircraft wing cuts into a pale orange horizon at sunset.
    19

    An aircraft wing at sunset

  3. Beside a wing and engine, the sun hangs over a landscape with a shining river.
    20

    Sunlight beside the wing

  1. Sunrise above clouds from a plane; A red horizon glows below a deep blue sky, seen from above the cloud layer.
    21

    Sunrise above clouds from a plane

  2. Scattered clouds float above a softly golden expanse of water.
    22

    Gold beneath the clouds