Surrealism

Surreal images are those that would not seem out of the ordinary in a dream, but in reality convey the feelings of uneasiness, strangeness and a sense of surprise. Most artists who paint surreal images are often inspired by dreams or when they are in the state between awake and asleep.

After looking at surreal paintings and photos it immediately became apparent we had to show something unusual, something you wouldn’t ordinarily see or imagine. Although for the assignment we primarily focused on trying to manipulate photos so that they could depict a person’s dreams in a very original and artistic way, we also found that some of our shots had that dreamlike feeling without the addition of secondary images.

- Dan -
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I took the original photo of this in a small shopping centre opposite St. Paul's cathedral. As soon as I walked in I realised the strangeness of the building with all its sharp edges and reflective windows. When looking up from the centre it feels as though the building is at a dizzying height which I wanted to exaggerate even further and thus making a surreal photo.
To do this I simply duplicated the image and rotated one to place on top of the other, although the process was simple I feel it accomplished what I intended better than I thought it would. Looking at the photo it gives the impression you are trapped by unending metal and glass with the only way out at the top, but way too high to reach. Something which could be seen more as a nightmare then a dream.

- Dan -
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After taking the above photo and starting to walk out the shopping centre I noticed how perfectly centred the cathedral was within the two windows and almost perfect reflections it cast. Even before editing the photo in Photoshop I thought the image was already surreal in the way the reflections were so perfectly made on the windows. However, the idea of the photo being surreal might not immediately be apparent so we then decided editing the Photo to exaggerate the surrealism would be a good idea.
The whole idea of this photo is taking a picture of a reflection, as if I was looking in a mirror with the cathedral and building behind me. After looking at the photo more, we also came up with the idea that it look as if I was looking down on a tiny city as some kind of giant.

- Jenny -
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Prior to taking this particular photo, which is actually of a big leaved plant, I took
a picture of the same plant but with the sun much more hidden behind it. When I
noticed some subtle sun rays coming through the gaps between the leaves I
wondered what would happen if I let more of the sun into the shot, and here is the
 interesting result. I thought it gave the sense of being in that state between awake
and dream quite well, perhaps with the image even representing that moment you
open your eyes after waking and the light and colour come flooding in.

- Jenny -

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Although I thought my first image had a strong surreal feeling about it we both
thought that our assignment brief was asking us to head in a photoshop
direction. So for this particular image I began with the photo of my pool on
holiday. I loved how the lighting of the picture came out quite intense, with the 
orange ring coming out practically neon and contrasting with the almost
silver water. Then it came to what to add to the picture and I thought that I
could do something with the ring as it is the focal point, and the most obvious
way to do that was have something come out of it. Then when my dad said a couple
of days later how you're only allowed to water the plants two days a week where
we were staying in Florida due to house association restrictions I thought
why not put a tree in the ring where it can get all the water it wants. Then my
mum joked that the ring stops the plant from drowning as plants shouldn't have
too much water. The picture is quite humorous but I think it can be considered
surreal due to the juxtaposition of objects you wouldn't usually expect to see
together, making you double-take when glancing at the image as it doesn't seem real.