While modern air travel may not be as alluring as it once was, unlocking the mystique surrounding the well-manicured women (and men) in charge of our safety and comfort in the sky is still enticing, and now it's possible.

In the book Flight Attendants, photographer Brian Finke chronicles the lives of flight crews around the world. Finke began his work in the United States, flying numerous airlines domestically, from Delta to Southwest. He then moved on to Europe, boarding British Airways and Air France flights, among others. Later, he visited a flight attendant school where he photographed the flight crew practicing their emergency procedures -- giving safety demonstrations, putting out fires, and inflating slide rafts. He also visited Asia and ended the worldwide jaunt on Icelandair.

Finke spent two-years traversing the globe to capture both public and private moments, from preparing food in the galley to applying make up, shooting pool and smoking cigarettes. Finke, with his eye for fashion, captures an image of air travel that is unlike what some may imagine in the days of low-fare cattle cars and few amenities in the sky. In one image reminiscent of a runway show, Tiger Airways crewmembers descend the roll-up stairs onto the tarmac, proudly displaying their white blouses, black pencil skirts and black and orange Tiger Airways scarves.

Finke's past work has covered a wide range of subjects but he focuses on team dynamics in much of his photography. Some of his past work has included photos of baseball and football players, cheerleaders and fraternity brothers. Along with the release of the monograph, an exhibition of Finke's work from Flight Attendants opened at ClampArt in New York on Thursday, February 21.

With Alix Browne, deputy style editor of The New York Times Magazine, and Alison Nordström, Curator of Photographs at George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film in Rochester, New York, contributing, Flight Attendants is sure to be good reading material the next time you're at a cruising altitude of 35,000 ft and may be the best way to recall the romance of air travel. --BRANDON FELDMAN

READ MORE:
Some of the 800 images from The Complete Pirelli Calendars
A former Microsoft whiz kid attempts to reinvent the airplane

MV STAT: On May 15, 1930, a registered nurse named Ellen Church became the world's first airline stewardess, working a route from Oakland to Chicago...