--- description: Exhausted and bored on an assignment, photographer Rachel Hulin thought it would be fun to make her baby fly. So her son Henry flew. title: Photos: The Flying Baby image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt989d5824b732517d/6986872e169ab02a062786c6/hulin-time-fly-6.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [World](/section/world/) ## World Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close * [LightBox](/tag/time-section-lightbox/) ## LightBox Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # The Flying Baby by [Patrick Witty](/author/patrick-witty/) ## Patrick Witty Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Feb 21, 2012 9:00 AM CUT  Sink Fly, 2011 Sink Fly, 2011Rachel Hulin by [Patrick Witty](/author/patrick-witty/) ## Patrick Witty Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Feb 21, 2012 9:00 AM CUT Henry first flew last summer. Exhausted and bored on an assignment, photographer Rachel Hulin, Henry’s mother, thought it would be fun to make her baby fly. So Henry flew. “The photo was sort of magical in an unexpected way and I wanted to make more,” Hulin said. She posted the photograph on Facebook and soon there was a flurry of comments. “Some people like the cute ones, some people like the spooky ones,” she said. “It’s an interesting litmus test.” 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. “I felt like the pictures could show the world that babies inhabit that is all their own,” Hulin said. While she wouldn’t divulge the exact details of how Henry flies, Hulin did admit that it was more subtraction than addition. “I wanted the flights to feel genuine,” she said. “These are places we are really in everyday, it’s not a cut-and-paste job on random interiors and landscapes.” 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.” 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. “It’s funny, I already feel nostalgic seeing how little he was in his first flights.” _Rachel Hulin is a photographer based in Providence, Rhode Island. You can see more of her work_ [_here_](http://rachelhulin.com/ "undefined")_._ _Patrick Witty is the international picture editor at TIME. Follow him on twitter_ [_@patrickwitty_](https://twitter.com/#!/patrickwitty "undefined")_._  Sink Fly, 2011 Rachel Hulin  Shower Flight, 2012 Rachel Hulin  Hotel Flying, 2011 Rachel Hulin  Flying Outside, 2011 Rachel Hulin  Hall Flight, 2011 Rachel Hulin  Farm Flight, 2012 Rachel Hulin  Dune Flight, 2011 Rachel Hulin  Brick House Flight, 2011 Rachel Hulin  Flight of the Scholar, 2011 Rachel Hulin  The New Human Flies, 2011 Rachel Hulin ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3786307/flying-baby/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3786307/flying-baby/"},"headline":"The Flying Baby","datePublished":"2012-02-21T09:00:48.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T04:41:11.340Z","description":"Exhausted and bored on an assignment, photographer Rachel Hulin thought it would be fun to make her baby fly. 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