Photographer: Johan Thornqvist

Johan Thornqvist is a Swedish Illustrator who tranforms everyday photography captured with a phone, from being lifeless to intriguing pieces of art by illustration his style on top of photography. He creates surreal settings from a combination of Photography and Illustration. He uses photos taken from his phone and transforms the ordinary settings into strange sets, where his creatures live unordinary situations.

I got in contact with Thronqvist to ask him about the technique that he uses. He responded with; 'I use Photoshop (first drawing the line-art on one layer, then colouring/shading on other layers and then using adjustment-layers and textures in different blend-modes to blend the Illustration with the photograph (I usually just play around a lot with this until I get the look i'm after.) I use a Wacom tablet when I draw.' This information has really helped me with my experiments and gives me a wider understanding of how he achieved his work and I can compare this now to my other photographs and build on using this technique as well as I can.

In this particular Photograph out of Thornqvists collection, we see an everyday pipe in the street that has been illustrated over the top. The composition of the Photograph is portrait with the street pipe in the centre which also dominates the composition therefore our eye is immediately drawn to the subject. The background around the pipe is quite dull showing the pavement and bland street wall behind. The subject, which is the pipe, is also dull and reflecting the background, has a very distressed look. The lighting in this composition is natural, however a slight filter has been added to it, which is a recurring feature in Thronqvists work. The filter that is added gives the Photograph an imaginative feel which creates a creative contrast between the photograph, illustration and also the background. An extended shallow depth of field is used as everything is in focus, as the background is plain this does add or take away any dramatic effect. Texture is present within the subject of the pipe, as it is seen to be rusty and rough. The illustration has blended in well with the subject and does not dominate. The illustration of an imaginative city created on the subject is very intricate and detailed. The fact it is drawn from a tablet gives the Photograph a more technical feel by the way the illustration is presented, however it enhances the meaning behind the composition and highlights the contrast between imagination and reality. There could be many reasons behind this photograph. To me, it seems as if Thornqvist has taken into consideration the busy lifestyle of the majority of people, maybe even taking influence from himself, and creating this imaginary world as a way to escape this. As the photograph is a street pipe, this represents the busy streets that many people walk on, walking by similar pipes like this one and not taking any notice of the things around them. 

This Photograph is quite different from the previous Photograph. Thornqvist has produced a variety of portrait and landscapes, this one in particular is landscape. Firstly we notice that there is more spacing in the composition of this photograph. The use of leading lines is present with houses on both the right and the left side of the photograph and the road which is places in the middle creating the leading lines off into the distance. In the distance of the photograph, it seems to get busier with people mainly on the right side. The illustration of the balloon man and children are placed on the left side of the road along the leading line which balances out the composition. The two lampposts which are placed at either side of the road are symmetrical, this then is repeated further into the background with two more lamp posts. At a first look the illustration of the balloon man and children are the first thing you notice as they are closest to the foreground, your eyes then wander to the lamp posts, you then notice the other little illustrations of a lady and her dog at the bottom of the right lamppost and the man tightrope walking between the lampposts. The lighting has been enhanced with the use of a filter which looks a very subtle black and white with hardly any contrast to it, this makes the illustrations stand out of the photograph more as they are more distinctive and even though they only contain a limited amount of colour, they bring that to the composition. The story behind this photograph is a more sincere one. Looking at Thronqvists' collection, he seems to make boring, everyday situations fun and almost as if this is what life should be like. The fact that this particular Photograph contains the element of illustrated children, yet in the Photograph itself only contains busy everyday people shows that Thornqvist is wanting to bring joy and a more younger innocent feel to everyday life.