TEDSalon London Fall 2011
Erik Johansson: Impossible photography
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Erik Johansson creates realistic photos of impossible scenes -- capturing ideas, not moments. In this witty how-to, the Photoshop wizard describes the principles he uses to make these fantastical scenarios come to life, while keeping them visually plausible.
Erik Johansson - Photographer and retoucher
Photographer Erik Johansson creates impossible but photorealistic images that capture an idea, not a moment. Full bio
Photographer Erik Johansson creates impossible but photorealistic images that capture an idea, not a moment. Full bio
Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.
00:15
I'm here to share my photography.
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Or is it photography?
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Because, of course, this is a photograph
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that you can't take with your camera.
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Yet, my interest in photography started
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as I got my first digital camera
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at the age of 15.
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It mixed with my earlier passion for drawing,
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but it was a bit different,
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because using the camera,
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the process was in the planning instead.
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And when you take a photograph with a camera,
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the process ends when you press the trigger.
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So to me it felt like photography was more about
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being at the right place and the right time.
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I felt like anyone could do that.
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So I wanted to create something different,
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something where the process starts
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when you press the trigger.
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Photos like this:
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construction going on along a busy road.
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But it has an unexpected twist.
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And despite that,
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it retains a level of realism.
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Or photos like these --
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both dark and colorful,
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but all with a common goal
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of retaining the level of realism.
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When I say realism,
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I mean photo-realism.
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Because, of course,
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it's not something you can capture really,
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but I always want it to look like it could have been captured somehow
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as a photograph.
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Photos where you will need a brief moment to think
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to figure out the trick.
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So it's more about capturing an idea
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than about capturing a moment really.
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But what's the trick
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that makes it look realistic?
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Is it something about the details
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or the colors?
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Is it something about the light?
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What creates the illusion?
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Sometimes the perspective is the illusion.
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But in the end, it comes down to how we interpret the world
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and how it can be realized on a two-dimensional surface.
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It's not really what is realistic,
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it's what we think looks realistic really.
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So I think the basics
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are quite simple.
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I just see it as a puzzle of reality
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where you can take different pieces of reality and put it together
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to create alternate reality.
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And let me show you a simple example.
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Here we have three perfectly imaginable physical objects,
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something we all can relate to living in a three-dimensional world.
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But combined in a certain way,
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they can create something that still looks three-dimensional,
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like it could exist.
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But at the same time, we know it can't.
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So we trick our brains,
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because our brain simply doesn't accept the fact
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that it doesn't really make sense.
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And I see the same process
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with combining photographs.
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It's just really about combining different realities.
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So the things that make a photograph look realistic,
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I think it's the things that we don't even think about,
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the things all around us in our daily lives.
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But when combining photographs,
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this is really important to consider,
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because otherwise it just looks wrong somehow.
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So I would like to say that there are three simple rules to follow
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to achieve a realistic result.
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As you can see, these images aren't really special.
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But combined, they can create something like this.
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So the first rule is that photos combined
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should have the same perspective.
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Secondly, photos combined
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should have the same type of light.
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And these two images both fulfill these two requirements --
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shot at the same height and in the same type of light.
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The third one is about making it impossible to distinguish
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where the different images begin and end
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by making it seamless.
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Make it impossible to say
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how the image actually was composed.
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So by matching color, contrast and brightness
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in the borders between the different images,
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adding photographic defects
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like depth of field,
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desaturated colors and noise,
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we erase the borders between the different images
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and make it look like one single image,
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despite the fact that one image
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can contain hundreds of layers basically.
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So here's another example.
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(Laughter)
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One might think that this is just an image of a landscape
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and the lower part is what's manipulated.
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But this image is actually entirely composed
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of photographs from different locations.
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I personally think that it's easier to actually create a place
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than to find a place,
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because then you don't need to compromise
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with the ideas in your head.
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But it does require a lot of planning.
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And getting this idea during winter,
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I knew that I had several months to plan it,
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to find the different locations
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for the pieces of the puzzle basically.
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So for example,
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the fish was captured on a fishing trip.
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The shores are from a different location.
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The underwater part was captured in a stone pit.
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And yeah, I even turned the house on top of the island red
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to make it look more Swedish.
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So to achieve a realistic result,
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I think it comes down to planning.
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It always starts with a sketch, an idea.
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Then it's about combining the different photographs.
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And here every piece is very well planned.
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And if you do a good job capturing the photos,
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the result can be quite beautiful
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and also quite realistic.
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So all the tools are out there,
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and the only thing that limits us
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is our imagination.
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Thank you.
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06:11
(Applause)
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ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Erik Johansson - Photographer and retoucherPhotographer Erik Johansson creates impossible but photorealistic images that capture an idea, not a moment.
Why you should listen
Erik Johansson is a self-taught photograher who learned how to retouch photos to make impossible and extraordinary images. Growing up with a grandmother who painted and a penchant for escaping into the other worlds of video games, he naturally blended the two into a technique using computers to generate images that couldn't be captured by a camera.
Erik Johansson | Speaker | TED.com