When I first leafed through Site Specific I was convinced I was looking at tiny scale models, or paintings, or . . . well, anything but aerial photographs of real cities.

Roma, 2004

But that's exactly what these photographs by Olivo Barbieri are: aerial photographs of 36 cities from around the world presented in this new book due for release by Aperture this September.

Over the course of this ten-year project, and through the use of "tilt-shift" photography (a technique that renders its subject to appear as if a tiny model), and later other devices and techniques, Barbieri turned potentially standard aerial photographs into something simultaneously familiar and unfamiliar, a little unreal, and very peculiar.

Shanghai, 2004

Brasilia, 2009

Mexico City, 2011

Los Angeles, 2012

Site Specific, with an introduction by Christopher Phillips, is due out this September from Aperture.