The Gland Canyon: Photographer turns naked bodies into dramatic desert landscapes

• Art project 'Bodyscapes' takes parts of the human body and turns them into curious landscapes
• Using Photoshop and unusual lighting, photographer Carl Warner turns the human body into desert scenes
  

By Daily Mail Reporter

Published: 12:40 EDT, 1 August 2013 | Updated: 15:32 EDT, 23 August 2013

London-based photographer Carl Warner has turned nude, muscular bodies into these clever optical illusions that look like desert landscapes.

Warner's photographs for the series are made up entirely of naked forms and interestingly each picture is only made up of different angles of the same person.

Each composition is a single shot of one contorted volunteer, or a composition of different angles of the same body.

Shin Knee Valley: These 'bodyscapes' by London-based photographer Carl Warner look almost like sand dunes but are in fact legs manipulated by Photoshop

Valley of the Reclining Woman: Carl Warner photographs human forms then cuts them together to create new ways of looking at the body

Shoulder Hill Valley: This undulation of shoulders and backs looks like an arid landscape but is in fact a mixture of different backs

Headless Horizon: This desert terrain is the dip between a man's shoulder blades, lit from above

At first glance they are desert terrains and mountains but the longer viewers look the clearer the constituent body parts become.

Warner is best known for his visual trickery for years with his playful Foodscapes series, which featured landscapes constructed entirely from fruits and vegetables, cheeses, breads, fish, meat and grains.

Like his celebrated foodwork, with memorable tropical scenes created out of materials such as smoked salmon and potatoes, his Bodyscapes are not what they initially appear.

Explaining his still life work, he explains that he want to focus attention on 'one person’s body, creating a sense of place so that a body that is lived in becomes a place to live.'

The Desert of Sleeping Men: This optical illusion of a valley is made up of the same volunteer's head reproduced and cut together

The Cave of Abdo-Men: Looking through toned torsos, the legs look like rocky outcrops in the distance

Twin Peaks: A pair of pointy elbows make for convincing mountains

Elbow points: This erotic print is a mixture of elbows and a man's back

Fingers Cave: This extraordinary still life is lit from unexpected angles to help create the illusion of landscape