Erik Johansson: Impossible photography

http://www.ted.com 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.

TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes. Featured speakers have included Al Gore on climate change, Philippe Starck on design, Jill Bolte Taylor on observing her own stroke, Nicholas Negroponte on One Laptop per Child, Jane Goodall on chimpanzees, Bill Gates on malaria and mosquitoes, Pattie Maes on the "Sixth Sense" wearable tech, and "Lost" producer JJ Abrams on the allure of mystery. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design, and TEDTalks cover these topics as well as science, business, development and the arts. Closed captions and translated subtitles in a variety of languages are now available on TED.com, at http://www.ted.com/translate

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  Howto & Style

[xPopxTartsx]

Why are you telling him to go back to drawing a dick...? Sometimes commas are important.

[Sarah Hart]

I wish I could be that good.

[jacobhamselv]

Grammar is the difference between helping your uncle jack off a horse, and helping your uncle Jack, off a horse.

[larsie21]

haha, u jealous..?

[Amithrius]

I understand what he is saying, however the insinuation that his art is superior to photography doesn't sit too well with me. His images are cool to look at for a moment but none go beyond that. A truly great photograph is deeply moving. Its something you can come back to repeatedly and still feel the same way. Of course, this is subjective but most other people I know feel the same.

[Chuck Norris]

my scissors

[scarletrhubarb]

I looked at the pictures on your google plus account, by the way. I dunno if you would have inferred that from where I accused you of being a snob who shoots macros of flowers :P

No offense intended at all!

[scarletrhubarb]

I find it hard to believe that a person who is going to be a snob about using Photoshop is also going to be a person who shoots macros of flowers.

My favorite flower macro shot, that I took, has a bee and an ant on it. I google that and see that I was not the first. If anyone was there with the mind to take a picture, they'd have taken it.

TBH I find the triviality of photography to be a bore, and the gap of creativity between you or I and Erik Johannson is something that we'll never close.

[TumVilki]

I understand why some people don't like this. It's because this dude is calling his photoshop images a photographies. But photo's are something that has been taken in real time and space - a caption of light reflections. Can you say that a crayon drawing is a photography? No. But photoshop is same as a crayon drawing - it draws pixels.

[butchdetablan]

very nice!