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Travel

The Art Of Levitation: 6 Photographers Who Feature Gravity-Defying Subjects

Gravity is no match for the power of Photoshop.

Just because you can't do something in real life, doesn't mean you can't make it happen with a bit of Photoshopping and some hard work. After all, what has the internet taught us if not that when you can’t achieve something, fake it? And so it goes with levitation. It's not something most people claim they can do, apart from those flying Buddha types or some yogic masters. Everyone else can only really jump in the air and remain there until gravity tells them otherwise, which isn't impressing anyone.

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But people can levitate, or appear to levitate, in photographs. It's a bit of a trend, everyone seems to be at it—and you can see why, because it looks great and until we all become Tibetan lamas, this is the closest we're going to get to seeing people suspended in midair. If you want to give it a go yourself, there are plenty of tutorials floating about the web, just google and you will be rewarded. But until you do, here's a selection of some fine examples of levitation photography.

Hayashi Natsumi
In her levitation shots she seems to be jumping yet suspended in the air, sometimes going about daily tasks like vacuuming or going through a subway station. And she achieves all this with just a tripod and a 10-second self-timer.

Li Wei
Creator Li Wei likes to make a fuss when he does his incredible levitation photos. For his illusions he utilizes all manner of tricks to capture the thrilling images, with props like a mirror, metal wires, scaffolding, and acrobatics. Plus plenty of post-production.

Franck Bohbot
French photographer Franck Bohbot’s black and white photos are a more casual form of levitation—street photography gets a magical addition as people float in the air while walking down the street or checking their phone.

Somewhere Lovely
Somewhere Lovely’s sometimes dramatic series of photos have a kind of dark fairytale quality to them, where the subject either has their face covered by hair or is caught in some strange embrace with a non-levitating person.

Erich Leeth
From some casual levitation over the family table while they’re playing cards to a Matrix-style battle in a professional kitchen, these photos capture the humourous side of being able to float at will.

David Nemcsik
These have a dream-like quality to them, the people are all horizontal like you would be if you were sleeping. The settings adds a sense of mystery, almost like these people are being lifted by some unseen alien tractor beam.

@stewart23rd