In an unprecedented collaboration combining orbital and terrestrial photography, NASA astronaut Don Pettit and National Geographic Explorer Babak Tafreshi have created a stunning visual project that captures the same locations and phenomena from two dramatically different perspectives. Over the course of Pettit's seven-month mission aboard the International Space Station, the duo coordinated 10 photo shoots across four continents, with one photographer floating 250 miles above Earth while the other stood firmly on the ground.
The ambitious project began earlier this year when the two photographer friends finished shooting the Grand Canyon and started discussing their next collaboration. Pettit, eager to photograph Madagascar from space, sent Tafreshi a text praising the island's beauty. Despite being tired from extensive travel, Tafreshi boarded flights from Boston to Paris, then to Antananarivo, Madagascar's capital, before driving to the remote Avenue of the Baobabs. Meanwhile, Pettit's journey was simpler yet more extraordinary – he simply floated from one room on the ISS to another, positioning himself at windows overlooking Earth.
The friendship between these two photographers spans more than two decades, beginning shortly after Pettit's first stay on the newly assembled ISS in 2003. Pettit, who has been an astronaut for nearly 30 years and has logged almost 600 days in space across four missions, brought digital cameras with him and fashioned a camera mount from scavenged station materials. This improvised equipment provided the stability necessary to capture the night sky without light streaks. Tafreshi, then working as an editor at Iranian astronomy magazine Nojum, had been photographing the night sky since his teenage years, focusing on natural wonders visible in areas free from light pollution.
When Pettit's space photographs reached Earth, Tafreshi emailed the astronaut with compliments, beginning a correspondence that would evolve into this innovative photo project. Their collaboration required tremendous planning and coordination, accounting for complex orbital mechanics as the ISS circles Earth every 90 minutes, racing sunrises and sunsets. Geographic limitations also posed challenges – when Tafreshi suggested Iceland as a potential location, Pettit had to explain that the ISS never flies over that region. Similarly, some photogenic locations Pettit identified from space were along borders of countries in conflict, including India and Pakistan, and North and South Korea, making ground-based photography too dangerous.
Pettit faced his own constraints, working around his demanding astronaut duties while finding time for photography. "When you're on station, you've got a pretty encompassing day job," explained Pettit, who is known among NASA's craftiest astronauts for innovations like designing a drinking cup to make sipping coffee easier in microgravity. "You need to make sure that there's a hole in your work schedule where you can run to the cupola and take a few pictures."
The resulting images showcase Earth's wonders from perspectives that reveal new dimensions of familiar phenomena. Their Madagascar shoot captured dense forest networks and minimal city lights appearing as a dark blanket from Pettit's orbital viewpoint, while Tafreshi photographed the island's famous baobab trees against swirling star trails converging around the celestial south pole. The Grand Canyon session showed Pettit capturing ribbons of streaking light from Los Angeles, while Tafreshi documented the desert landscape from ground level.
Sometimes cosmic timing worked in their favor. A comet visiting from the solar system's edges appeared just a week after Pettit reached orbit, with Tafreshi observing it from Puerto Rico while Pettit enjoyed an unobstructed view without Earth's hazy atmosphere. A major aurora storm conveniently appeared over Tafreshi's house, allowing both photographers to capture the phenomenon within hours of each other – their best synchronized timing of the entire project. "If you look at the same ripple from orbit, you might find that it's actually an oval," Pettit explained, describing how dual perspectives reveal auroras' true nature.
Space-based photography presented unique challenges beyond earthbound weather concerns. Pettit's cameras occasionally malfunctioned due to constant cosmic radiation bombardment, and astronaut life sometimes intruded on his shots. Once, while examining Pettit's Maldives images, Tafreshi noticed a mysterious green patch in the water that seemed to move unusually fast between frames – it turned out to be a weight-lifting machine reflected in the space station windows. "Every crew member works out on this machine for an hour and a half a day," Pettit noted, adding that he sometimes asked colleagues to turn off lights and exercise in darkness for his photography, though not everyone obliged.
The project captured diverse phenomena including the Manicouagan Crater in Canada – the "Eye of Quebec" formed 214 million years ago by an asteroid impact and now filled with water. Pettit photographed the 62-mile-wide crater from space while Tafreshi captured it from the reservoir bank at dusk. Other locations included Yellowstone National Park, where Pettit used a 10-second exposure through his 50mm lens to photograph both Earth and the Andromeda galaxy, while Tafreshi documented Castle Geyser erupting against star trails.
Both photographers believe human operators create superior space photography compared to automated satellites, which often produce flat, textureless images. Pettit can manipulate light and shadow for richer portraits, while the emotional connection of human perspective adds meaning to orbital views. Retired NASA astronaut Karen Nyberg explained this phenomenon: "I would go over Houston, or go over when they were visiting upstate New York, and feel very connected to them because I was only 250 miles away, just directly above them. And then I would actually start to feel kind of this connection with people in other places on the Earth that I don't know."
Despite their decades-long friendship, Pettit and Tafreshi have met in person only a handful of times, communicating primarily through text and email. Their conversations focus on technical photography details rather than personal philosophy – "the stuff of true shutterbug geekery," involving f-stops and imaging software. Yet their bond extends beyond professional collaboration, demonstrated when Tafreshi withheld details about being robbed in Sicily to avoid worrying Pettit during his space mission.
The Madagascar session served as their final collaboration before Pettit's return to Earth. With minimal artificial light in the region, Pettit's shot depended on celestial alignment – specifically a full moon to illuminate the nighttime landscape. Tafreshi stood among the baobab trees, absorbing the Milky Way's shimmer in the unpolluted sky while listening to nocturnal wildlife and villagers passing with mule-drawn carts. "It was surreal," he recalled.
The resulting collection presents Earth's dual nature through striking visual contrasts. From above, Earth appears as a gleaming world with a wispy atmosphere suspended in an inky void. From below, it reveals itself as a complex tangle of flora, fauna, and humanity that, as far as we know, exists nowhere else in the universe. These paired images present Earth as it truly is – simultaneously just another planet and our irreplaceable home, offering viewers the unique experience of feeling both grounded and weightless while contemplating our world's beauty and fragility.
