During his seven-month mission on the International Space Station, astronaut Don Pettit collaborated with photographer and National Geographic Explorer Babak Tafreshi to photograph the same location or phenomenon from two different perspectives, one photographer standing on Earth, the other floating 250 miles above it. They coordinated 10 photo shoots across four continents. The result is a celestial scrapbook of our planet, with spellbinding scenes that can make you feel grounded and weightless at the same time.
Madagascar was their last shoot before Pettit returned to Earth. The region has little artificial light, so Pettit’s shot hinged on the alignment of celestial bodies—the presence of a full moon—to illuminate the landscape. Tafreshi stood in the brush, taking in the shimmer of the Milky Way. “It was surreal,” he said. The quiet was punctuated by the nocturnal murmurings of wildlife and of villagers passing by in carts pulled by mules.
Pettit and Tafreshi believe that space photography is better done by people; there are plenty of satellite images of Earth from orbit, but often the pictures are flat and textureless. Pettit can play around with light and shadow, creating a richer portrait.
From above, Earth is a gleaming world with a wispy atmosphere in an inky void. From below, it is a tangle of flora, fauna, and humanity that, as far as we know, doesn’t exist anywhere else. The resulting diptychs present Earth as it truly is—just another planet, and our only home.
Artist Bios
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Babak Tafreshi
Babak Tafreshi is an Iranian American science photojournalist and National Geographic Explorer at Large based in Boston. He merges art and science through visual stories, using photos, videos, and 360-degree immersive media. Since 2007, Tafreshi has been directing a growing team of photographers in nearly 25 countries for the World at Night project. His other long-term projects are Life at Night Atlas (where, since 2023, he has documented the nighttime ecosystem and impact of light pollution), From Above and Below (where, since 2024, he has achieved coordinated Earth-space night photography), and National Parks at Night. His imagery aims to reconnect humanity with the natural world, reveal the wonders of science to the public, and connect cultures through common interest in the night sky. In 2009 he received the Lennart Nilsson Award, the world’s most recognized scientific imaging award at the time, and in 2022 he earned a Royal Photographic Society Award and the National Geographic Society’s Wayfinder Award. The International Astronomical Union named the minor planet 276163 after Tafreshi, whose interest in astronomy began when he first saw the moon through a telescope as a child in Tehran.
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Don Pettit
Don Pettit is a NASA astronaut with 590 days in space across four missions between 2002 and 2025. He is also a scientist, an inventor, and a photographer known for breathtaking space images of the Earth and sky at night from the International Space Station.
After receiving a chemical engineering Ph.D. from the University of Arizona in 1983, Pettit became a scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory until 1996, when he joined NASA and moved to Houston. In 2002 he served as the science officer for ISS Expedition 6. He used spare parts on the station to invent a photography tracking device that compensates for the orbital movement relative to the Earth’s surface, permitting sharper high-resolution images of city lights at night. In 2008 he was the mission specialist aboard space shuttle Endeavour when he invented the zero-gravity cup, which uses the principle of capillary channel flow to carry fluid along a crease to permit drinking without a straw. It received the first ever patent for an object invented in space.
Most recently, on Expedition 71/72, he spent seven months in orbit, took about a million photos, and researched in-orbit metal 3D printing, water sanitization technologies, plant growth, and fire behavior in microgravity. He returned to Earth on April 19, 2025—his 70th birthday.
Organizations
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National Geographic
Representing one of the largest brands on social media with over 801 million followers and a billion impressions each month, National Geographic Content’s award-winning and critically acclaimed storytelling inspires fans of all ages to connect with, explore, and care about the world through factual storytelling. National Geographic Content, part of a joint venture between The Walt Disney Company and the National Geographic Society, reaches up to 402 million households in at least 170 countries and 30 languages across the global National Geographic channels (National Geographic Channel, Nat Geo WILD, Nat Geo MUNDO), National Geographic Documentary Films, and streaming services Disney+ and Hulu, in addition to being a global digital, social, and print publisher. Its diverse content includes Oscar- and BAFTA Award-winning film Free Solo; Oscar-nominated films Sugarcane, Fire of Love, Bobi Wine: The People’s President, and The Cave; Emmy Award-winning franchises Race Against Time and Secrets of; Emmy Award-winning series Animals Up Close and Trafficked With Mariana van Zeller; and Emmy-nominated series A Real Bug’s Life and Tucci in Italy, in addition to multiple National Magazine Awards, Pulitzer Prize finalists, and Webby wins. Visit nationalgeographic.com and natgeotv.com or explore Instagram, Threads, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, TikTok, and Reddit.
Our World From Above and Below
Featuring: Babak Tafreshi Don Pettit
Locations
View Location Details Washington Street and Prospect StreetWashington Street and Prospect Street
DUMBO, Brooklyn 11201
Location open 24 hours
The views and opinions expressed in this exhibit are those of the exhibition artists and partners and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of Photoville or any other participants and partners of the Photoville Festival.
