The Imaginative and Surreal Landscapes of Erik Johansson

For Swedish artist Erik Johansson, simply taking a good photo was never satisfying enough. Combining his love for computers and drawing, Erik would spend countless hours tinkering and retouching photos to unlock abstract ideas from commonplace settings.

His childhood love for the other-worldly settings of video games and upbringing in the Swedish countryside are omnipresent in his work. “A lot of the environments in my photos are captured near places I know, around my parents’ home with wide open landscapes and small red houses. Inspiration is everywhere and what you can imagine is what you can create” writes Erik.

Below is a collection of our favorite landscapes from Erik’s portfolio.

The Cover up

Landfall

Breaking Up

Expecting winter

Groundbreaking

Cut & Fold

Snow cover

Roadworker’s coffee break

Go your own road

Let’s leave

Diamond in the rough

Full Moon Service

Curious how he does it? In his FAQs, Erik describes that his process comprises three parts:

“The first part is planning. Once I’ve come up with an idea that I think is good enough to realize I need to find the places I need to shoot to put the photo together.

The second part is shooting/collecting the material. I never use stock photography in my personal projects, I always want to be in complete control of my photos and feel like I’ve done everything myself.

The final part is putting the photos together. This takes anything from a few days to several weeks. This is actually the easiest step, if I did a good job in the first and second step. This part is like a puzzle, I have all the pieces, I just need to put them together.”

Artwork reprinted with explicit consent from the artist. You can support Erik by purchasing high-quality prints at https://www.erikjo.com.