Photos of Real-Life Superheroes Are Totally Trippy and Wonderful

If you're afraid of heights, these photos might make you weak in the knees. Taken 40 stories above San Francisco's Financial District, the portraits of "real-life" superheroes (or villains!) display the dizzying lengths that photographer Benjamin Von Wong and his models — customer-service personnel and engineers from SmugMug — went to for a good shot.

In handmade costumes modeled after their favorite comic-book characters, these normal people pushed themselves to the limits by posing on the edge of a skyscraper . . . 1,000 feet above bustling traffic. Using a custom camera rig to get perfect snaps of the daring volunteers, Von Wong coached his amateur models into poses reminiscent of the iconic characters. The finished portraits are breathtaking, vertigo-inducing, and definitely heroic, but the story behind the shots is even more impressive. How far would you go for your fandom?

Check out the full gallery, and then watch the behind-the-scenes video to see exactly how this stunning shoot became reality.

click to play video
Harley Quinn
Benjamin Von Wong

Harley Quinn