The fascinating flying baby

Feeling bored during an assignment one day, New York photographer Rachel Hulin created photos of her son flying in mid-air... and the pics have since gone viral! Everyone wants to know the secret behind the flying baby.

The Flying Baby

New York photographer Rachel Hulin created photos of her son flying in mid-air and the pics have since gone viral.

This story has a simple beginning... Hulin was bored out of her wits while working on an assignment one day, and she thought it would be fun to make her son, Henry fly, and that's exactly what she did!

Image source: CBSnews

"I never throw him..."

Speaking to some of the unusual body positions of her flying offspring, Hulin said, "I never throw him, and I never move him into a place in the frame that he wasn’t in to begin with. I like Henry to fly the way he feels like it, I never pose him in a specific way. Sometimes he’s graceful and sometimes he’s a little hunchback. I think telling you more would ruin it."

"I wanted to take more..."

She was completely surprised at the response she received on facebook the moment she posted it, a flurry of comments flooded in. "The photo was sort of magical in an unexpected way and I wanted to make more," Hulin said.

"It's an interesting litmus test..."

"Some people like the cute ones, some people like the spooky ones," she said. "It’s an interesting litmus test."

Slip into the surreal

Hovering above a bed in a hotel, through a barn and into a shower, the flying baby photographs transcend cute and slip into the surreal.

"The world that babies inhabit that is all their own..."

"I felt like the pictures could show the world that babies inhabit that is all their own," Hulin said.

"More subtraction than addition..."

Hulin won't give up how the photos were produced, however she did admit that it was more subtraction than addition. "I wanted the flights to feel genuine," she told Time Magazine's Lightbox blog.

"It's not a cut-and-paste job"

"These are places we are really in everyday, it’s not a cut-and-paste job on random interiors and landscapes."

"I do feel compelled to keep making them."

She plans on continuing the series with hopes of showcasing the images in a book or exhibition some day. "I do feel compelled to keep making them," Hulin says.

Feeling nostalgic

"It’s funny, I already feel nostalgic seeing how little he was in his first flights," she says.

More of the flying baby

Rachel Hulin is a photographer based in Providence, Rhode Island. Her work has been displayed at The Bronx Museum of the Arts, Wallspace Gallery, Jen Bekman Gallery, and The New York Photo Festival. You can see more of her work here

Written by

theAsianparent

fascinating flying babycreative photos