Before the housing bubble, before the dot-com boom, before the gold rush, there were tulips. The flowers that made the Netherlands famous were the first speculative bubble, and nurseries the first unicorns.

It's easy to see why—they're gorgeous. Especially from the air. The neat lines of bright hues go on and on. "The colors are much more intense than you think they are going to be," says photographer David Burdeny. "I was taken aback by how bright—almost fluorescent—they were when the sun hit them. There’s nothing like it."

The sight mesmerized Burdeny as he flew into Amsterdam from Vancouver four years ago. He returned last year with a camera and a homemade drone, but the contraption couldn't cover enough ground and was no match for persistent wind. The photos weren't sharp enough.

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He made a third trip to Europe in April, keeping an eye on Noordoostpolder, where the flowers cover 2,500 acres and thousands gather for the annual Tulip Festival. The flowers typically bloom between March and May, but a cold snap delayed the harvest by several weeks.

Burdeny started thinking he might have to make a fourth trip, but the flowers unfurled two days before he was to leave. The fields exploded with color, and Burdeny chartered a helicopter. As the pilot flew over the tulips, weaving to avoid the occasional wind turbine, Burdeny leaned out of the copter with a Phase One 100-megapixel camera.

His stunning photos capture the color and symmetry of the landscape and the details of individual blooms. So while you're watching a post-Brexit currency crash or the erosion of free venture capital, you can look back on where it all started, and think, well, at least it was beautiful.

Burdeny's aerials are on view at the Kostuik Gallery in Vancouver until July 31.