Famed aerial photographer Kacper Kowalski, featured previously on our website, has taken to the skies again, this time to document the complex relationship between humans and nature. From high up the air, paragliding over the Polish landscape, Kowalski captured where nature and civilization interact in aesthetic, abstract colors and shapes. His aerial photographs are now available, for the first time, in the form of a book entitled “Side Effect”.

In 80 highly aesthetic images, Kowalski depicts landfills and waste spills, snow-covered orchards and autumn leaves. Many of the objects or scenes photographed need some amount of interpretation to understand what it is exactly that’s being portrayed. “Sometimes the pictures resemble drawings,” Kowalski said. “Sometimes they are like maps with traces of human presence on the Earth.”

An aerial view of a Polish forest, with trees changing color.