Dubai-based, South-London born airline pilot and photographer Rico X. went straight to pilot school at 18. Now 39, he travels the world through his job, and in his project “Who Left the Bloody Lights On,” he waits for the perfect clear weather conditions, avoids the reflection of the flight controls in the window, all the while dealing with regular turbulence, and captures society from above.
The name started out as a joke, “a line muttered in the cockpit looking down at 3am.” But in those late nights, gazing down at Earth, Rico considers it more profoundly: “We’ve lit the planet like a showroom in parts,” he says. “For example, office buildings we could surely power down at night.” Rico often ponders why so much power needs to be used at these late hours. “But then again, while we sleep, the night economy that supports our whole existence comes to life in the form of deliveries, drivers.”