A nosey parker's dream: Stunning aerial photographs show what's going on in the world's back gardens

By GRAHAM SMITH

SITTINGBOURNE, KENT: A circular housing development with symmetrical triangular gardens caught Mr Hawkes' eye

Little more than boxes on a hillside, these are our homes as seen from thousands of feet in the air.
An aerial photographer has captured the different types of living arrangements people have all around the world.
Jason Hawkes, from Oxfordshire, travelled above four continents by helicopter in a 12-year project to record how housing developments have produced abstract patterns on the landscape.

LONDON: An aerial view of houses in a north-eastern suburb of the city. Photographer Jason Hawkes, from Oxfordshire, travelled above four continents by helicopter in a 12-year project to record how housing developments have produced abstract patterns on the landscape

MOROCCO: A farmhouse with a pen full of sheep lies alone in the middle of the desert

From the picturesque circular layouts of suburban Britain, to thousands of identical apartments stacked on top of each other in densely populated Hong Kong, his pictures reveal an alien world that is at once familiar and unfamiliar.
Mr Hawkes said: 'The photos were taken while I was on other shoots for an idea of covering peoples dwellings viewed from above.
hHomes in the UK tend to all be very low rise - typically just two stories and all with some kind of garden, big or small.
'But I just love the very abstract nature of the apartment blocks in Hong Kong. Certainly in some of the larger metropolises - where land is at a high premium - everybody has an apartment block.
'But this is just as prominent in cities in the U.S. as the Far East.
Among the countries Mr Hawkes visited were Spain, Norway, Hungary, Morocco, China and the U.S.

MEDELLIN, COLOMBIA: A shanty town made up of rocky winding roads and metal rooftops

HONG KONG: High-rise apartment blocks lie side-by-side in the densely populated city

WORCESTERSHIRE: An historic Middle Hill House above Broadway contains an overgrown inner-garden

BUDAPEST: A parked car sits in the middle of an apartment building in the Hungarian capital

LAS VEGAS, NEVADA: The sprawling identikit suburbs of one of the fastest growing cities in the U.S.

MENORCA: Villas line up, each with a glistening swimming pool, in Cala en Porter on the Spanish island

HONG KONG: Away from the skyscrapers, a metal shack provides a roof over the heads of some of the island's poorer citizens

WILTSHIRE: A recently completed housing estate in the south-west looks somewhat like a town made out of Lego

HONG KONG: Uniform rows of houses feature in this image of Fairview Park Road North in Yuen Long

NORWAY: Snow-covered houses in the midst of winter look eerily peaceful from above

BATH, SOMERSET: A circular row of grand houses in St James's Park look on a giant tree

MENORCA: Holiday villas line Urbanitzacio Caparrot on the Mediterranean island

MENORCA, SPAIN: These more traditional villas occupy the Es Migjorn Gran area of the island

BUDAPEST: Where the Hungarian capital's increasingly green suburbs meet the countryside

source: dailymail