Most people hate those dreadful red-eye flights. But the true sign of a creative mind is the ability to take suckiness and twist it into brilliance. Case in point: Amsterdam-based architect James Leng, a.k.a. Ettubrute.

On a recent overnight flight from Amsterdam to San Francisco, James noticed that the lights from the cities the plane was flying over were making the clouds glow with a soft, ethereal light. So he got the rather brilliant idea of propping a camera on an empty window seat, setting it at ISO 1600, and playing with a range of exposures over the 3 hours between the Rockies and San Fran.

The end result was this stunning, hypnotizing time-lapse video, on which every light squiggle and flicker is an actual town or city the plane flew over.

Here’s to the demise of the airline industry, which makes half-empty flights the playground of creative minds.

via BoingBoing