Seat with a view: Photographer Julieanne Kost has been traveling the world for business for over a decade. Fed up with hotels and conference centers, Kost decided to take advantage of the aerial view of the earth from the plane -- photographing the views below. Photos courtesy of Julieanne Kost
Courtesy Julieanne Kost
Creative outlet: The project provided an artistic outlet for Kost, who was in a creative rut. "When you travel a lot for business everyone thinks it's very glamorous, because you get to go all these places, but most of the time you're in a hotel," Kost tells CNN Travel.
Courtesy Julieanne Kost
Flight planning: Kost started to plan her flights based on the time of day and picking her seat based on the view. Kost frequently traveled across the US and internationally -- photographing the sights she saw.
Courtesy Julieanne Kost
Conquering fears: "I'm also afraid of flying, so for me it was wonderful to be able to put the camera between me and the ground below [...] it really helped me to disassociate from it," Kost says. "I became an observer instead of a participant in the scene."
Courtesy Julieanne Kost
Traveling the world: "I gradually started accumulating a body of work, so that really pushed me forward as well as far as the momentum goes," Kost says. "And then every time you go out you look for just something unique and different."
Courtesy Julieanne Kost
Unique vantage point: Kost says commercial flights offer a unique vantage point on the Earth's surface: "I'm so fortunate I get to see it," she says. "And I feel so fortunate that I can share that with others."
Courtesy Julieanne Kost
From film to digital: When Kost first started her project, she was photographing with film. No one had smart phones, so she tended to be the only passenger photographing the view. "The interesting thing is no one ever asked me what I was doing," she says.
Courtesy Julieanne Kost
Digital travel: Nowadays Kost has branched out to digital -- she even hires private planes and helicopters to take photos with more flexibility.
Courtesy Julieanne Kost
Satellite vision: First, she checks out the area on Google Earth: "It's a good first spot to start looking, but the satellite imagery isn't always that great, especially in remote locations."
Courtesy Julieanne Kost
Learning the skill: Kost still travels frequently, so she has had plenty of time to work out how to photograph from the plane window: "There's so many reflections because there's multiple layers in the window, and so you have to make sure there aren't any reflections," she explains.
Courtesy Julieanne Kost
Changing views: Kost even enjoys repeat flights, because no view ever looks the same. "One day it might be clouds and the next day it's mountains and the next day it's farmland," she says.
Courtesy Julieanne Kost
Something new: The photographer is constantly looking for a new angle and a new perspective: "I'll take the same flight from San Francisco to LA, and the flightpath will be so different," says Kost. "Just because of weather or air traffic control, you see something completely new."
Courtesy Julieanne Kost
From plane to page: Kost published her work as a book -- "Window Seat: The Art of Digital Photography and Creative Thinking." The book is designed to help others find a creative outlet -- particularly if their day job is not fulfilling.
Courtesy Julieanne Kost
Artistic inspiration: "Most creative people go into a creative field because they have all these great ideas and they want to do all this creative work," Kost says, "but that's not always the reality."
Courtesy Julieanne Kost
Personal goals: The book suggests developing personal projects, alongside work assignments: "It's really important for people to have these projects they work on just for themselves," says Kost, "to stay motivated and to stay engaged and keep growing and learning."
Courtesy Julieanne Kost
Passenger seat: Kost has also tested out the view from another mode of transport -- the car: "I published the second body of work called passenger seat, it was actually taken from the car, so they're all motion blur."
Courtesy Julieanne Kost
Social media: Now Kost is an active Instagram user, posting a mix of her window images and other snapshots of life as she knows it.
Courtesy Julieanne Kost
Conflicting views: But Kost tries not to let the rules of social media affect her photos. "I think social media has a tendency to change what people post if their primary goal is to get likes," she says. "I don't want to change my work just to make it more colorful or popular."
Courtesy Julieanne Kost
Appreciating the little moments: Kost's photographs eschew the glamor of Instagram -- instead they are about making the most of the everyday -- including the boredom of business travel. "I think there's a lot to be said for just the normality of day-to-day living, those little moments," Kost says.
Courtesy Julieanne Kost
Beautiful ordinariness: This is the crux of Kost's work: "Getting to point A to point B, that's not always the most exciting thing," she says. "But you can find something."
![<strong>Conquering fears: </strong>"I'm also afraid of flying, so for me it was wonderful to be able to put the camera between me and the ground below [...] it really helped me to disassociate from it," Kost says. "I became an observer instead of a participant in the scene."<br />](https://media.cnn.com/api/v1/images/stellar/prod/170725115613-jkost-2002cp186.jpg?q=w_2200,h_1238,x_0,y_0,c_fill/h_447)
