The exploration of dreams, thoughts, and possibilities are hallmark traits of conceptual self-portrait photographer Fares Micue. The mesmeric and otherworldly concepts presented in each of her shots not only captivate the eyes but stir a kind of whimsical intrigue into the story behind the images.
To escape the mundane realities of life, conceptual photographer Kylli Sparre has created alternative worlds filled with movement, surrealism, and serenity.
For his latest piece, titled "Stellantis," surreal photography artist Erik Johansson set out to create a photo of someone stealing stars from the night sky.
Photographer John Dykstra says he believes in the power of perspective. His surreal photo style is created entirely with practical effects and simple ingredients -- things like paint, chalk, and glass -- rather than digital image manipulation techniques.
Justin Peters is a 22-year-old self-taught artist from Germany who uses Photoshop to creative dreamlike photo manipulations. His work blends reality with his imagination to transport the viewer to strange worlds.
Photographer and visual artist Antti Karppinen has been reimagining photos using Photoshop for over 23 years now. Here's a before-and-after look at how Karppinen is able to take plain portraits (shot in studios, garages, and outdoors) and turn them into dreamlike images.
Conceptual photographer Erik Johansson created this beautiful and surreal image titled "Full Moon Service," showing a couple of workers swapping in a full moon to maintain the lunar phases. Johansson has also released a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at how the project was done, from concept to final shot.
Viktoria Solidarnyh is a Ukranian digital photo artist who creates surreal, dreamlike scenes by cutting out and combining elements from a large number of photos. She has released a number of behind-the-scenes diptychs showing her source images to reveal how her composites are made.
Photographer Victor Habchy has attended the increasingly popular annual Burning Man gathering in Nevada's Black Rock Desert for the past few years, and every year he leaves with surreal photos of dreamlike scenes thanks to dust storms, unusual artworks, and Habchy's talented eye.
Katerina Plotnikova is a photographer based in Moscow, Russia, who creates beautiful dreamlike portraits of models getting up close and personal with all kinds of animals, from snakes to wolves to giant bears.
And here's what's amazing: Plotnikova uses real animals for her photo shoots rather than creating digital composites with Photoshop.
After my Star Wars photo-manipulation went viral, I was contacted by a fellow in Hong Kong who wanted to surprise his wife with a bit of Wonderland. He gave me some photos of him and his bride, and then graciously gave me artistic freedom to create the photo above.
Here's a 5-minute short film titled "O" that was shot entirely using a lens made with a drop of water and an iPhone. The lens gives the film a dream-like quality, which is perfect, given that the project is intended to give viewers the feeling of nostalgia.
Since 2009, Kirsty Mitchell has been dazzling the photography world with her epic (and deeply personal) photo project titled Wonderland. Now, 6.5 years and 74 photos later, the project is finished.
Fine art photographer Kylli Sparre spent years training to become a professional ballet dancer. After realizing that dance wasn't what she wanted to pursue as a career, Sparre picked up a camera, found that it was the perfect tool for channeling her creativity, and "never looked back."
Since then, Sparre has become well known for her surreal self-portraits, holding international exhibitions featuring her work.
By day, Robert Jahns is a digital artist and art director based in Germany. By night, he's known as nois7 on Instagram and runs a popular account boasting more than 600,000 followers. His stream of images consists of dreamlike photos that are often clearly the result of compositing, but there's one hidden fact that sets Jahns apart: his editing is done strictly on his phone.
When Peter Liepke set out to create his series Above & Beyond, he wanted to capture the feeling of having just move to New York City. The dream-like feeling of arriving in NYC for the first time and being swept away by the environment.
But where others might use a certain photographic technique to do this, Liepke achieves this ethereal feeling instead through platinum/palladium and gum bichromate processing.
Oleg Oprisco is a photographer based in Ukraine whose magical, dreamlike photographs have been shared far and wide on the Internet. In an age where realistic photo manipulations are the secret sauce behind impossible images, Oprisco's work stands out for one simple mind-blowing fact: they aren't artificial digital manipulations.
Photographer Alex Bamford's Sleepwalking series is a photo project with a simple idea but beautiful results. In short, it can be described as "moonlit wanderings in pajamas."
To commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, photographer Michael Falco is shooting a project titled "Civil War 150 Pinhole Project." His goal is to highlight the haunting beauty of civil war battlefields and to chronicle the various battle reenactments that are happening all across the country. To do so, he's using large format pinhole cameras that gives the poetic images an old fashioned look.
For her projects titled Égarements and Quotidien, French photographer Cerise Doucède creates elaborate scenes by hanging objects from the ceiling, creating swarms that look computer generated but aren't.
Some people use dream journals to record and remember their imaginary nighttime escapades. Israel-based photographer Ronen Goldman uses photographs. Whenever he has a strange dream that he'd like to document, he goes out and recreates that dream as a surreal photograph. The project is titled "Surrealistic Pillow".
For her Twins Project, French photographer Julie de Waroquier spent the summer of 2011 shooting surreal, symmetrical, and square portraits of identical twins.
David Talley is a 19-year-old fine art photographer who has attracted a sizable following on Flickr through his dreamlike portraits and self-portraits. He often spends a good deal of time and energy setting up his shots. For the photograph above, Talley and his buddy hauled a huge door nearly a mile to the beach.
Take a look at the portfolio of Washington D.C.-based photographer Cade Martin, and you'll feel like you're looking at movie stills from an upcoming live action Alice and Wonderland film. His beautiful, dreamlike photographs have themes of grace, beauty, repetition, and light.
Hawaii-based photographer Christy Lee Rogers specializes in creating dreamlike photos of people underwater. Her project Reckless Unbound shows people swirling around one another while wearing colorful outfits. The photos are reminiscent of the paintings of old Baroque masters, who would often paint people floating around in heavenly realms.
Malaysian photographer Peiling Lee captures beautiful, dreamlike macro photographs of tiny critters she finds in her garden. She uses a Canon 50D and a 100mm Macro lens. Her work reminds us of Nadav Bagim's Wonderland project that we shared last year.
Photographer Kim Keever creates large scale landscape photographs using miniature dioramas. He first creates the topographies inside a 200-gallon tank, and then fills it with water. He then uses various lights, pigments, and backdrops to bring the scenes to life for his large-format camera to capture.
Foodscapes is a series by photographer Carl Warner in which he creates beautiful surreal landscapes using various foods. Warner starts by visualizing and sketching his ideas, which are then built on a large table in his studio with the help of his team. Large blocks of polystyrene are carved and covered with ingredients in order to make the hills seen in his photos, while shallow tanks are used to create lakes, rivers, and seas. Photographs for three different layers (foreground, middle ground, and background) are captured separately and then combined in post.
Mattijn Franssen is an artist based in the Netherlands who combines his photographs into beautiful and surreal photomontages.
"Misadventures" is a series of photographs by San Francisco-based photographer Matt Sartain that shows individuals on long and epic journeys through dreamlike landscapes to find a place to belong. We love the ethereal quality present in all of his photographs -- especially the one above taken in Memory Glade on the Berkeley campus (Go Bears!).