Erik Johansson – Surreal Worlds

I love it when my friends recommend to me to check out some exhibition or a movie or some music. I enjoy talking about cool new people or art I came across and I’m always happy to hear what others find to be beautiful or exciting. That is how I’ve first heard about Erik Johansson, a swedish photographer and artist that creates amazing images. One of my friends mentioned that she loved his exhibition and a few days later my sister told me about it too.

The exhibition was in Fotografiska, Swedish Photography Museum, that is located in Stockholm. Sonja (my sister) loved it so much that she wrote about it on her blog that you have to check out because it’s awesome. After I saw his work I wanted to share it here too as it’s so original and cool that I just had too. But, enough of introductions already, let’s see who Erik Johansson is.

Erik is a photographer and retoucher. He doesn’t capture moments, he captures ideas. His work is complex and sometimes contains hundreds of different images that he uses to create his surreal work. Erik only uses his own images and always tries to make the final product as realistic as possible. His first interest in art came through drawing and transitioned into photography when he got his first camera as a teenager. Still, as drawing was more complex, he didn’t like the feeling that as soon as you pressed the trigger the photo was done. He wanted to do something more with the picture, which is how he decided to try out manipulating images with the help of a computer. He studied computer engineering and saw photography more as a hobby. But, that all changed and Erik is now creating his amazing art and working with clients like Google and National Geographic.