Maisel spent months planning and securing permission to fly over the copper mining operations. Much of
the airspace is controlled by the Chilean military, so the photographer and his team of two pilots would
sometimes have to re-jig their itineraries to make room for last-minute military exercises. Despite the
meticulous planning, there was still room for serendipity. “I knew about this mine and was interested
in photographing it, but I didn’t anticipate that they would actually be doing this blasting there,”
Maisel says. This picture is one of a series showing extraction work at the Centinela copper mine, one
of the largest in Chile – the machines and vehicles visible in the pit give a sense of the overall scale.11-19-FTlithium.indd 108 13/08/2019 16:59