Erik Johansson

Erik Johansson is a Dutch photographer who specialises in retouching photos to create really interesting effects. First off I'm going to look at his illusional work, which is really very confusing!

The second picture is probably my favourite and I think that it could be quite easy to recreate. I presume that Erik has taken one, or possibly a couple of pictures of the same crossroad, and then played around with them on Photoshop. My guess would be that  he separated the layers and flipped the horizontal ones over and merged them all together. I think that this is something that I might be able to have a go at if I have time as it is in a different route to surrealism.
Also with the third picture which is of the room, with a room on the ceiling I am unsure as to how he created it. I think it may of been a similar technique to the previous image.
The fifth image which shows a man creating a 'puzzle' on the street floor is very simplistic but also very striking. The vanishing point at the back of the picture immediately leads my eye to that avoiding the main subject of the picture. The reflection in the street gives the illusion that the picture is bigger than it seems. I think that this could be quite an achievable picture as I think he simply merged layers of a different floor together and played around with lines to create a puzzle effect.


Overall, I really like Erik Johanssons illusion images I don't think I am going to continue down this path in answering my question. I don't think that it fully explores the 'visual contradictions between fantasy and reality' which the question requires.