The greater Los Angeles area covers 4,850 square miles—the size of a small country—and holds almost 18 million people. Perhaps America’s most massive human creation, it has been legendarily vilified and celebrated in equal measure since its inception.

With LA Day/LA Night, Radius Books continues photographer MICHAEL LIGHT’s ongoing aerial examination of the arid American West by bringing together two opposing views of the city in a double volume set.

LA Day stares directly into the sun, washing the metropolis in blasted, relentlessly specific light. LA Night drifts over it in an ever-darkening electric dream, until the vast city below reverses and begins to signify the starry night sky vaulted above. Referencing Ed Ruscha, Peter Alexander, Julius Schulman, and writers from Philip K. Dick to Raymond Chandler, LA Day/LA Night continues Los Angeles’ rich cultural legacy of examining its favorite schizophrenic subject—itself.