We are now in an age where we see unending streams of Photoshopped images on a day-to-day basis. But since when did we fall under the notion that photographs need to be Photoshopped in order to look amazing?

Finnish-American photographer Arno Rafael Minkkinen has been taking surreal self-portraits for over 50 years, long before Photoshop and digital retouching.

Needless to say, taking these photographs aren’t easy, and many even put him into dangerous situations. Mostly working alone, at times he might lean out off a cliff or remain underwater for extended periods of time to get the perfect shot.

“Some of my pictures might look simple, but in reality they can test the limits of what a human body is capable of or willing to risk,” he writes on his website. “I began decades before Photoshop was invented. What you see happening in the frame of my image happened inside the viewfinder of my camera.”