Tom Ryaboi’s rooftop photographs have been stunning Toronto’s online urbanist community for years. Well known to Urban Toronto forum members as tomms, Ryaboi’s dizzying photos – which have been featured in BlogTO and Toronto Star – are taken from some of the highest vantages in the city: rooftops, cranes and skyscraper construction sites. The extreme views offer a whole new perspective of the city. Ryaboi’s latest project “City Rising” goes beyond photography and puts his sky high images in motion. The time-lapse video can only be described as gorgeous. On his Vimeo page, the daredevil photographer explains what compels him to climb so high to capture and share these images:

With City Rising I wanted to bring others up to this perspective, and from here, show them the city as they have never seen it before – where the boundary between earth and sky is unclear and the placid beauty of the city lays spread out below, quietly humming along. City Rising takes the viewer straight through rush hour traffic to the highest urban peaks and the clouds above it all, all in under four minutes.

Tom, thanks for climbing so we don’t have to.

[via Urban Toronto]

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Michael Kolberg is The Sprawl Editor at Toronto Standard. Follow him on Twitter for jokes @mikeykolberg

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