For a tiny fraction of the world’s elite, a billion dollars isn’t much. A billion dollars is a startup buyout in Silicon Valley. A billion is what Chinese industrialists make building HiPhones and fidget spinners. It’s a nice chunk of change, sure, but $1 billion will only see you flying around in a Gulfstream or a Cessna, or some other piddly nothing-to-write-home-about jet.

For Gulf State royals and a handful of Russian Oligarchs, “rich” means a very different thing. This elusive clique of multi-billionaires buy up large commercial jets from Boeing or Airbus, and adorn them with handwoven carpets, wood panelling, and gold everything. It’s a privileged world that’s near impossible to get inside, unless you happen to be the aviation photographer hired by the plane’s interior designer to capture the fit out. At least, that’s how Nick Gleis gets in.

Nick has made a career out of photographing the planes of the super elite. Originally trained in landscape photography by Ansel Adams, Nick fell into aviation photography almost by accident. He’s been doing it for over 30 years now, and has photographed somewhere in the vicinity of 1,000 planes. We spoke to him from his home in Virginia.

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