Saturday, December 30, 2017

Artist of the day, December 30-31: Erik Johansson, Swedish photographer, digital manipulation.

Erik Johansson (1985) is a Swedish-born artist based in Prague who creates surreal images by recombining photographs and other materials. He captures ideas by combining images in new ways to create what looks like a real photograph, yet with logical inconsistencies to impart an effect of surrealism. Some finished images are the combination of "hundreds of original photographs" as well as raw materials, and Johansson spends dozens of hours using image manipulation software such as Adobe Photoshop to alter the image digitally and to illustrate his idea.

To Erik it's always important with a high level of realism in his work. He want's the viewer to feel like they are part of the scene, to relate to it. Although his work consists of a lot of work in post-production and combining photogaphs he always tries to capture as much as possible in camera. "No one can tell you that it doesn’t look realistic if you actually captured it for real."

Light and perspective are crucial parts when combining images in a realistic way and if some parts are not possible to shoot on location, a similar scene has to be built up in a controlled environment. Having an understanding of both photography and post production is very important to make everything come together seamlessly. Every photograph and part has its purpose.

Erik always do all the post production himself to be in complete control of the end result. The idea, photography and post production are all connected. The final image doesn’t become better than the photographs used to capture it. Just like the photographs don’t become stronger than the idea.

There are no computer generated-, illustrated- or stock photos in Erik's personal work, just complex combinations of his own photographs. It's a long process and he only creates 6-8 new images a year (excluding commissioned work)

© 2017. All images are copyrighted © by Erik Johansson. The use of any image from this site is prohibited unless prior written permission from the artist is obtained.


Erik Johansson

2007, Lazy Dog

2008, Arms Break, Vases Don't

2008, Go Your Own Road

2009, Deep cuts

2009, Fishy Island

2009, Vertical Turn

2009, Zip City

2010, Impossible escape

2011, Fresh frozen fish

2011, Reverberate

2012, Cut & Fold

2012, Electric Guitar

2012, End of Line

2012, Groundbreaking

2012, Reverse Oposites

2012, Snow Cover

2013, Diamond in the rough

2013, Drifting away

2013, Expecting Winter

2013, Let's Leave

2013, Roadworker's coffee break

2013, The cover up

2014, closing out

2014, Don't look back

2014, Dreamwalking

2014, Landfall

2014, leaving home

2014, Walk a way

2015, Free Breakers

2015, Soundscapes

2015, The Architect

2016, Cumulus & Thunder

2016, Cutting Dawn

2016, Imminent

2016, Impact

2016, Lost in the Rain

2016, Wake Up!

2017 NCC (ad campaign)

2017 NCC Construction company (ad campaign)

2017, All Above the Sky

2017, Campaign for the Swedish construction company NCC (ad campaign)

2017, Campaign for the Swiss company Clienia (Ad campaign)

2017, Campaign for the Swiss company Clienia (Ad campaign)

2017, Demand & Supply

2017, Full Moon Service

2017, Loyal mail

2017, self supporting

Big laundry day

Campaign Unboxing Fyrklövern BTS  (Ad campaign)

Deep impact (Ad campaign)

Escalator in the sky

No limits (Ad campaign)

Perspective Squarecase

Swerea hand (Ad campaign)

TAC (Ad campaign)

Volvo Art Sessions (Ad campaign)

1 comment:

  1. There are many I like but i LOVE self supporting, that one I would own, he is bizarre, loves scissors, ad campaigns fascinating, i like cut and fold, many others; interesting mind beautiful art

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