Check out these 13 gorgeous photos from the set of Dune

Kwisatz Haderach

In addition to working as cinematographer on Dune, Greig Fraser is also a trained photographer and took lots of beautiful black-and-white photos on the set. You can see those throughout this gallery.

Pictured: Timothée Chalamet (Paul Atreides)

• Inside the making of the long-awaited (and star-packed) adaptation of Dune

Noblest of nobles

Dune marks director Denis Villeneuve's first collaboration with Fraser, having previously worked with cinematographer Roger Deakins on Prisoners, Sicario, and Blade Runner 2049. Villeneuve was delighted to discover Fraser's other talent and encouraged him to take photos on set.

"I was like 'Denis, the idea of having to take photos for a purpose stresses me out,'" Fraser says. "He said, 'well, then don't take them for a purpose. Maybe we'll end up with a couple of shots for an album at the end of production.'"

Pictured: Oscar Isaac (Duke Leto Atreides)

Lady of the desert

"I started photographing and I found it to be really rewarding because it became just a thing on set that no one really even knew when I was photographing," Fraser says. "What it did is it helped me focus."

Pictured: Rebecca Ferguson (Lady Jessica Atreides)

• How Rebecca Ferguson faced her fears with Dune

Loyal swordmaster

"It didn't distract me from my job," Fraser says of taking photos on set. "It helped me focus on what I needed to do, and what I needed to capture to tell the story very simply and very carefully."

Pictured: Jason Momoa (Duncan Idaho)

Cool under pressure

"As I was looking for a still frame, I wasn't looking for coverage, I was just looking to get to the core of what was going on in the environment at that given time," Fraser says. "I was actually really surprised how at how, instead of distracting me, it actually helped me focus."

Pictured: Timothée Chalamet (Paul Atreides), Oscar Isaac (Duke Leto Atreides), and Sharon Duncan-Brewster (Dr. Liet Kynes)

A new way of seeing

"You're looking at a subject in different way to what you would do normally," Fraser says of taking photos versus setting up film frames.

Pictured: Timothée Chalamet (Paul Atreides)

Leader of men

As Stilgar, Javier Bardem plays a leader of the Fremen who is not much interested in playing politics between House Atreides and House Harkonnen—both of whom want the valuable spice produced only in the deserts of Arrakis.

"Everybody goes there to dig in and take it out. It's like oil, and we know that brings a lot of fighting and destruction," Bardem says.

Light in the darkness

Fraser worked with production designer Patrice Vermette to design the interior spaces of Arrakis with very specific lighting.

"The overriding idea was that this sun is a killer. You can't be out in the sun for too long, or it'll destroy you," Fraser says. "So his concept, which I thought was brilliant, was that to get light into these places, he built light wells. What that means is you have the harsh sun coming in, but it's reflected and bouncing off all the stone. That allowed us to create powerful yet incredibly soft light. It was super interesting for me to light with that."

Pictured: Rebecca Ferguson (Lady Jessica Atreides)

Dream girl

Zendaya was only able to make it to the set of Dune for a week, but still found it to be a formative artistic experience.

Collaborate and listen

Taking photos on set, especially during moments that would otherwise be downtime for a cinematographer, gave Fraser a different view of interactions between Villeneuve (seen here with Chalamet) and the cast.

"So while the director and actors are talking, I'm watching them talk and watching subtle little things happen, which ordinarily I wouldn't be tuned into if I wasn't in the act of taking a photograph," Fraser said.

They should've sent a poet

"I developed a very good relationship with quite a number of the actors," Fraser says. "I've always been a big fan of Josh Brolin's writing, I read his writing on Instagram. He's playing a poet, Gurney Halleck, but he is such a talented wordsmith in his own right."

Loyal advisor

Stephen McKinley Henderson plays Thufir Hawat, a valuable advisor to House Atreides. As a "Mentat," Hawat is capable of calculating complex mathematics—a valuable skill in a future entirely devoid of robots and supercomputers.

The desert sky

Fraser says he and Villeneuve looked at lots of films set in deserts in preparation for Dune—so that they could do something different.

"We deliberately went against the idea of blue sky and yellow sand. We wanted to create a white sky and white sand," Fraser says. "It's important for us to feel the hostility of this new planet. It's important that the camera, the visuals, and the colors make us feel like this is a waterless world."

Pictured: Josh Brolin (Gurney Halleck) and Timothée Chalamet (Paul Atreides)

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