How this photograph was made in-camera in the middle of the Bolivian salt flats

Fine art photographer Gray Malin recently published the second instalment of his Far Far Away series. It’s an interesting and somewhat abstract set of images shot in the Bolivian salt flats, Salar de Uyuni. One particular image involved transporting 500 bananas out into the middle of the salt flats, to create a huge pile of them.

You might think the image is Photoshopped and indeed all is not quite as it seems, but the image was created entirely in-camera. In this video, Gray shows and talks to us about how he did it.

The image was created in-camera, although it’s not just a giant stack of bananas. Salt from the surrounding area was piled up to create the bulk of the mound which was then covered in bananas. Two production assistants hid behind the mound out of the camera’s view to throw individual bunches of bananas up into the air to sell the effect that they were falling from the sky and creating the pile on the ground.

Many of the images in the series look like Photoshop trickery that couldn’t possibly happen in reality, however, all of them were created practically, in-camera. Gray posted another short video recently which shows some clips behind the scenes of some of the other images in the series. There are quite a few cool techniques shown off in the video.

Gray also posted a video showing some of what can be expected in Part 3 of the Far Far Away series. Oh yes, there were llamas involved.

It is a fascinating and very colourful set of images, with some somewhat unique challenges. You can see Part 1 of the series here, and the rest of Part 2 here.

[via ISO1200]