ERIC KIM

How to Shoot Surreal Photos

Shadows

Find a good spot, and stalk the shadows.

Flash it up

Flash. Construction workers in Denver, 2019 #RICOHGRII
Mumbai, 2011. Leica M9 x Flash
Street portrait, woman looking right. NYC, 2015. RICOH GR II x FLASH
Lips pink. Portra 400 flash, London.
Long range flash experiment. Trix pushed to 1600
Seoul flash, grimace.
African-american cop cutout. Downtown LA, 2013 #flash #portra400
London. Leica MP and flash. Kodak Portra 400
Kyoto, 2017 #ricohgrii #flash

We don’t see the world with flash. Shooting with flash truly opens up the world to a new reality.

Astute visual acuity

  • Real or fake?
  • Black door entrance to the universe
  • 1984
  • Head in a bag?

Essentially make photos that make you go:

WTF?

  • Pink — the color of flesh, and sex?
  • Sky cutout.
  • Industrial clouds
  • We are watching you

Surreal or real?

I feel the most successful surreal photos when they border reality and surreality.

  • Dead or alive?
  • What happened here?
  • No face, but the face is the tattoo

Things which are out of place

  • A spine with a power chord?
  • Is there a person under the red jacket?

Surreal aesthetics

We don’t see the world with flash. Surrealism in colors — we don’t really see the world rendered in color film (Kodak Portra 400):

The pink against the blue as a stark contrast.
A strange shade of orange