For most of human history, man-made light has signified hope and progress. Made between 2005 and 2010, and titled after the unit for measuring illumination, Seely’s project focuses on light produced by 45 cities in the United States, Western Europe, China and Japan–the most brightly illuminated regions on NASA maps of the earth at night. These economically and politically powerful regions have the greatest impact not only on the night sky but also on the planet’s ecology.

CHRISTINA SEELY’s portraits are less about the individual locations and more about the global ramifications of consumption, and for this reason each photograph is titled simply “Metropolis,” with a notation of the city’s latitude and longitude.

The book’s large-format design is an echo of the exhibition installations of the project, and includes a key-coded NASA map (in a separate pocket), which connects the singular to the global. Texts by Jane Brox, Natasha Egan, and Liam Young help create a broader understanding of the project and its place in Seely’s entire body of work.