Research

Erik Johansson Research

Resource: http://erikjohanssonphoto.com/

     Erik Johansson is a Swedish photographer and Photoshop wizard based in Berlin, Germany. He has a passion for illusion, working on both commissions and his own photography; even going as far as to entertain people on the street with his work. His method of thought concentrates on capturing "ideas" and not "moments" which in my opinion is a good way to go about doing things. Most of his inspiration comes from his day-to-day life, his normal activities are often converted into plans for future images and art. The special thing about his creations are that they are always photorealistic, and although we know that it can't be real, the visual reality of the heavily edited photographs is astounding. Every time he tackles a new project the one thing he keeps in mind is realism, and for that, his imagination has achieved unbelievable heights.

Some of his work:

      Tetris ~ 

The first picture that I found really interesting, since I have a passion for the game itself.
It brings a quaint nostalgic feel, as if I just discovered my old gameboy in the attic and started playing the game. I like the faded/burnt edges on the image too, they provide an "industrial" feel to the picture, as if brought to life from the depths of our imagination. Most importantly, the blocks, (from my perspective) look like they could actually exist, and if that crane drops the shape, it's going to leave a dent.

Strax Tillbaka ~

The second picture that caught my eye was this blatantly vivid picture of a supposed suicide. Actually, the first time I looked at it I wasn't impressed, just a picture of some guy falling to his death, then I noticed the note. "Strax tillbaka" Directly translates into "Be Right Back" and that made me smile. After some thought, I realized that to take a picture of someone jumping out of a window isn't exactly plausible, then the realism hit me and I was aghast. Another impressive picture Erik, I salute you.





Kaffeslump ~

At first I thought, what's so special about this one? is it the angle? is the newspaper made out of rock or something? Honestly, I went on google to translate the title, nothing. I sat there for a moment, and then it hit me. What does the coffee spill look like? The world. BRILLIANT RIGHT? The subtle message that the entire world can be hidden in a cup of Kaffe really makes you think, how big are we actually on the scale of things? The universe is huge, and we're just a tiny spill on it's broad horizons.



Overall, I really enjoy his work, and it's quite inspirational.

_________________________________________________________________________________

Human Animal Blending

Resource: 
http://www.surfnlearn.com/tutorial/778/Human_Animal_Hybrid_-_How_to_Blend_a_Human_and_Animal_Face/

Miranda and I decided to try this one together, looks interesting enough :)

Lets start the project by finding a picture of an animal and my ugly face.

Now, In photoshop I'm going to put them on the same canvas, with the animal as backing and my face with a bit of opacity on top.

The next step is to flip, turn, rotate, etc. to make the eyes match up. Duplicating both layers just incase you mess up is a good idea. to be continued.

_________________________________________________________________________________


Smoke Art

Resource: 
http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/realistic-smoke-effect-photoshop-tutorials/
http://www.photoshopsmoke.com/photoshop-smoke-tutorial-effect-1-image-2/21

This is going to be my attempt at trying smoke art, hopefully it works out good, I'll track and upload the result.

I started the project by opening up a window in photoshop, 800x600 and on a black canvas drawing a thick grey line. Apparently I'm going to be using the liquify tool a lot :P

The process consists of three steps:
1: Drawing the line.
2: Liquifying and fading, multiple times.
3: Burning the dark, Dodging the light and playing around with the levels of the image

Halfway done? I think..

After about 30 times of liquifying.... Time to tweak everything! :D

My end result :) Cool, I like it. I think I'm going to add some colour....

So, for future reference, smoke looks cooler if it goes in one direction (punny). Mine kind of ended up as a spreading everywhere thingy, but it looks awesome so I'm happy.