Surrealism Street Photography

Much of street photography is surrealism, owing to the surrealist tendencies in our godfather, Henri Cartier-Bresson:

Let me share some examples from some photographers who I love.

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Lars Tunbjork (Office series)

1. Overlap technique

Overlap certain elements, like it looks that the flower is an Alien parasite, sucking the blood out of the office worker (metaphor):

2. Houdini trick

This photo by Lars, it’s like a Houdini trick: legs on top, and persons head on bottom of this guillotine:

3. Disorienting perspective

Which way is up?

4. “Let me out of here!”

We know nobody is stuck inside the locker, but the stuck necktie makes us think otherwise!

5. Framing inside the frame

The Japanese man looks like he’s wired and plugged into this metaphorical wire lattice. Like being plugged into the Matrix:

ERIC KIM

Photo techniques I’ve learned:

6. Decapitation technique

Learned this one from Mark Cohen, who loved to just show closeups of hands and limbs, and cut off the eyes.

Some of my photos:

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More from my SUITS project:

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7. No eyes

Use a flash to obscure the eyes of your subject:

8. Make non human things look human

Photograph signs, billboards, etc:

Conclusion

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