Do you want to make a photo look surreal? Surrealism photography is a great way to express dreams, fantasies, and the subconscious, and create something that looks strange and bizarre. What techniques are used in surrealist photography? This post shows you how to create surreal photography – both in-camera and with post-production!
Most people would think of paintings when they hear ‘surrealism’. But photography can also be surreal. Just like many other forms of art, including literature, sculpture, and cinematography.
There is even digital surrealism, which includes all types of digital art.
Surrealism is an art movement that started in the early 20th century. That means surrealism has been around much longer than photography itself. The idea of surrealism is to give free rein to the subconscious mind. Dreams and fantasies play a big role in the works of all surrealists.
Basically, surrealism photography history has been written since the first camera was developed. Some of the earliest surrealist photographers are Man Ray, Hannah Hoch, and Hans Bellmer.
Back in the day, the artists used various darkroom techniques to create surreal photography. One technique was the Sabattier effect where partially developed film was briefly exposed to light.
Nowadays, with all the modern software programs and different hardware tools, it’s much easier than ever to create surreal photography.
In this post, I will show you nine easy techniques that you can use to create surreal photographs. The techniques include both in-camera and post-production methods. So no matter whether you are working with Photoshop (or a similar editing program) or just with your camera – you will find a way to create surreal photography!
For a more hands-on approach, you can check out my easy-to-follow Photoshop tutorial on how to create a surreal portrait that I’m going to link to at the bottom of this post.
What makes a photo surreal?
Surrealist photography means you create a piece of art that is somehow bizarre, weird, or odd. It can make people feel uncomfortable or wonder about the meaning behind the artwork.
A surreal photograph is never intended to be realistic and rational. It typically contains fantastic and nonsensical elements.
Surrealism doesn’t follow any rules. So you can give your imagination free rein and really create what you feel like!
Surrealist artists have different intentions regarding what they want to express with their work. You might want to give an outlet to your emotions, tell a story, or just create something ‘unusual’ that grabs the viewer’s attention.
Portraits are especially popular in surreal photography. But your subject can really be anything. It’s even possible to create surreal nature photography.
If you wonder why portraits are particularly interesting, then check out my post about Art And Mental Health: How Does Visual Art Affect The Brain?. Because there is a definite reason why our brain is drawn to human faces!
What makes good surrealist photography?
As I said above, surrealism started out as a movement that focused on the artist’s dreams and fantasies. At the same time, was a counter-movement against the excessive rational ways of thinking and the materialistic attitude that surrealists believed had led to WWI. That way, surreal art may also be a political statement.
There are many ways you can use to express yourself through surrealism. You can recreate your dreams or express your emotions and feelings. On the other hand, you might also make a statement that concerns politics, culture, or society.
It totally depends on your personality for what reason you create surreal photography!
Related: Art And Personality: What Does Art Say About A Person?
In any case, that doesn’t mean the message behind your works has to be immediately obvious. That’s another characteristic of surrealism. Maybe you like to create popsurreal images where child-like women have strangely enlarged heads and doe-like eyes. Each viewer might have a different interpretation of your art. But that’s totally okay.
If you wish, you can speak about your art and tell people the meaning of your works. But you can also give everyone the freedom to understand your images the way they want. That’s the great thing about surrealism.
What techniques are used in surrealist photography?
Basically, there are two ways to achieve surrealist photographs. One way is to use camera-based techniques only. So in the list below, you’ll definitely find some surreal photography ideas without Photoshop.
However, the more exciting option is to use post-production tools like Photoshop or Lightroom.
Digital art software allows you to really go wild and take your original photo to a whole new level. That’s why I recommend using a software like Photoshop. There are so many fun things you can do with editing!
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Anyways, here are 9 ways to create surreal photography – both with your camera and a program like Photoshop!
9 Ways to create surreal photography
1.
Since surreal photography is often about creating things that don’t exist in real life, compositing is a great technique to make surreal images.
Photo compositing is done with post-production. Photoshop is ideal to create image composites, but you can use any program that allows you to work with layers.
Compositing means you add things to the original photo in unrealistic locations and merge everything seamlessly. You can also reduce the opacity of part of an image, so that the underlying layer shines through.
→ How To Change The Opacity Of Part Of An Image In Photoshop
2.
Long or multiple exposures can be done with Photoshop but also in-camera. Using multiple exposures was actually how the technique started out in the early days of film photography.
Long-exposure photography allows you to capture an element at an extended period of time. This can be easily done by adjusting the shutter speed of your camera.
Another way is to create an overexposed or underexposed image using a photographic technique called high-key photography or low-key, respectively.
Both exposure and high-key and low-key effects may be achieved in-camera and with post-production. These are the 2 best techniques to make a high-key photo in Photoshop.
When working with Photoshop, you can mimic long or multiple exposures using different layers, opacity levels, and blending modes.
→ How To Use Blending Modes In Photoshop – (With Blend Modes Cheat Sheet!)
Grab your free Photoshop Blend Modes Cheat Sheet
3.
Cutting out things from the same photo and pasting them somewhere else, or adding elements from a different photograph is an easy way to create surreal photography.
It’s a technique that is often used in surreal photo manipulations, too, because you can achieve effects that wouldn’t be possible in real life.
→ How To Create A Surreal Photomanipulation – Easy 3-Step Process To Cut Out Things
4.
Photoshop offers a variety of tools to resize elements and change their dimensions. You can make things bigger or smaller, stretch or shrink them using the different Transform tools (Scale, Rotate, Skew, Distort, Perspective, Warp), the Puppet Warp, or the Liquify filter.
You can resize an entire element, for example the entire body of a person. But you can also rescale individual elements only, while keeping the overall dimensions intact.
If you want to create a popsurreal photo, you can, for instance, only scale up the head and the eyes. As you keep the body at its original size, you can create the type of child-like characters that are typical of lowbrow art.
5.
Another way to make surrealistic images is by using blur. Blur is an easy way to add a dream-like effect to your works. You can do this either with your camera or your editing program.
For example, you can move your camera while taking the photo, or you can capture a moving object using a slow shutter speed.
With a photo editor, you have even more possibilities. First of all, there’s a plethora of blur filters (Photoshop has altogether 14) to select from. Then, you can also choose to blur only a certain part of the image.
Apart from that, you can also use blur to smoothen the skin. That allows you, for example, to create those typically surreal stylized faces.
6.
Changing tones and colors lets you quickly create a strange atmosphere. When creating surreal photography, you are free to change the colors just the way you wish. You don’t need to consider how things look like in reality.
For example, the sky can be red and the grass can be blue in your surreal art. Your imagination is the limit.
7.
Surrealism challenges rationality. So things don’t need to be logical.
That means you can change the perspective, turn things upside down, or twist shapes and figures. This is yet another technique that you can do with both your camera and editing software.
Anything that makes your photo look bizarre is allowed.
8.
Applying artistic filters allows you transform your realistic photo into a painterly image.
To use artistic filters, you will need a software program. Good digital art programs come with a plethora of filters. With Photoshop, you can turn your photograph into a oil or watercolor painting, chalk or charcoal drawing, fresco, mosaic, and much more.
It’s also possible to combine different filters and create a very unique effect.
If you apply artistic filters to only parts of your image, you can achieve a result that looks both real and imaginary.
9.
My last tip on how to create surreal photography is to use a combination of two or more of the above techniques.
While one technique might already let you achieve a nice strange effect, combining several methods lets you add a great deal of surrealism to a realistic photograph!
Just play around with the different techniques, experiment, and see what you like.
Easy-to-follow tutorial: How to edit surreal photography in Photoshop
I hope you found these techniques helpful and got inspired to try them out to create your own surreal photographs!
As I said at the beginning, for all those of you who want to dive deeper into surreal photography, I have an easy step-by-step Photoshop tutorial. To learn more about making surreal images, check out How To Create A Surreal Portrait In Photoshop.
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