Neon photographs of Times Square shot from above show a futuristic NYC

Calling on a friend of a friend, who happened to be a helicopter pilot, he took to the skies for a one hour flight over Manhattan at sunset, heading to one famous part of NYC. "We were lucky because, usually, Times Square is off-limits for helicopter flights. We had one passage over the area in the dark and I captured these pictures," Xavier explained.

"Technically, it was a bit hard because I had only one chance and with the helicopter moving all the time and the light being very low, I had to go up to 6400, 12800 and even 25600 ISO on my Canon 5D Mark IV in order to keep my shutter speed fast enough. After that, I used Adobe Lightroom to post-process the colours and give it this look of sci-fi city feel."

You can discover more of Xavier's recent work at xavierportela.com or follow him on Instagram @xavierportela.