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Navigating the Social Media Maze

In the digital age, social media has become an indispensable tool for connecting with each other, regardless if it’s your family, friends or with artists and others. However, as platforms evolve and algorithms shift, it's becoming increasingly hard to stay up to date with everything happening and to share my work with the people who are actually interested. I want to connect with you directly and I want to make sure you don’t miss out!

From the showroom in Prague, April 2024

See new works before everyone else

A newsletter may sound like something from the old internet days but I still think it’s a great way to stay in touch, without the need to go trough the filter of algorithms and social media, if you sign up you will ALWAYS get the update! I will not send more than 4-6 newsletters per year and you can unsubscribe anytime but I will make sure to keep you up to date with what is happening and share exclusive content and a peak behind the scenes.

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Exhibition: The Echo Chamber - Fotografiska, Stockholm, Sweden

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New exhibition just opened in Fotografiska Museum of Photography in Stockholm, Sweden. The Echo Chamber explores the topic of how we connect to each other and don’t, an immersive experience with with images, text and sound. Step into my world in a new way!

In this exhibition, three different themes illustrate the complexity of human perception. Based on Erik Johansson's images titled The Echo Chamber, Filter Bubbles and Painting a World of Our Own, we have allowed each theme to grow out into the room. Here you will neither find answers to the big questions, nor a shimmering utopia. Here is an exploration of the power of perception where a shift in our own perspectives could open new paths to a brighter future.

In a world that seems increasingly polarized, full of tensions, we create a sense of comfort by constantly seeking confirmation of our preconceived notions of reality. In this way, we build echo chambers in groups or inflate filter bubbles around us. Things that seem true and universal are often just our unique perception of the world. Becoming aware of our limited perspectives and biases, there is a huge potential for change. By harnessing the power of perception, we challenge not only our own beliefs, but also the judgements and decisions we make based on them. If we manage to burst our bubbles and break the habitual patterns of thinking, we can together create a more inclusive society.

It may be hard to see, but when challenged and exposed to the plural possible futures that we face - we build a unique capacity: futures literacy, defined by UNESCO as “the skill that allows people to better understand the role of the future in what they see and do”. Whether aware of it or not, we use the future every day in ways that influence our way of thinking and behaviors in the present. Becoming futures literate, as individuals, communities, organizations, and nations, allows us to be more intentional about how we think about and act for what lies ahead. This requires challenging assumptions, exposing, and changing the mindsets underpinning current and future paradigms, to activate inner development and change. We can use the unwritten future as a tool to decode, un- and re-learn behaviors and biases, and confront our limited perception of the world. We cannot create what we cannot imagine. We risk reproducing only the presently imaginable, when what we want, and need, is the presently unimaginable.

Diverse perspectives, altering perception through interaction with others and inclusive societies underpinned by norms of inclusivity and legal instruments can pop individual bubbles and then support the breakdown of echo chambers at a societal level, we can then begin to paint a world of our own.

“Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.”

- Arundhati Roy

For enquiries about the artworks get in touch with us here: print@erikjohanssonphoto.com

Computer Build 2023

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Note: I was not sponsored or given any of the components either for free or at any discount in this post, I just want to share my personal opinion about my last computer build!

Why build your own Computer?

I have always liked building my own computers, I feel that it gives me more control over optimization of that machine that I want to work on and the joy of combining parts into a computer is maybe something that started already when I was building LEGO as a child. Furthermore it’s a affordable way of maximizing you performance to affordability. Julian Erksmeyer helped me select components and build the computer in Prague a couple of weeks ago.

We decided for DDR4 ram although DDR5 has already been around for a while, mainly because I wanted 128 GB and from what I had read and heard DDR5 is not yet stable at 128 GB. I might however in a year or two buy a new motherboard and upgrade the ram to 256 GB or more DDR5 ram.

Components Used

CPU: 1x Intel Core i9-13900K
Motherboard: 1x MSi PRO Z790-P (ddr4 version)
RAM: 1x G.SKILL RipJaws 5 Series F4-3200C16Q-128GVK 128 GB
CPU Cooler:1x Noctua NH-D15 CPU Cooler
PSU: 1x Seasonic Prime PX 1000W
Fans: 1xNoctua NF-A12x25 LS-PMW
Fans #2: 2xNoctua NF-A14 iPPC-3000 PMW
GraphicsCard: 1x Gigabyte 4090 GAMING OC
Case: 1x Fractal Design Define R6 (I wanted Fractal North, but sold out everywhere at the time)
SSD System: 1x 2 TB Samsung 990 PRO M.2 NVMe SSD (MZ-V9P2T0BW), 2 TB
SSD Storage: 1x 4TB Crucial P3 Plus 4TB M.4

Total cost ca 5 000 EURO including VAT

Problems

As always with building your own computer there are some quirks and work arounds you have to consider. There were no major problems this time but there is one issue that I already knew about before starting the build. The new massive graphics card I decided to go for, mainly for video editing, has it’s power connector located on the side of the case. It is a pretty tight spot to put the cable and there are many reported cases of cables melting because of a too strong bend in the case. So I will be running my machine with an open door until my angled adapter will arrive from CableMod hopefully in the next few weeks!

After Using it for a Week

So how much faster is it actually? Well I notice that Photoshop still eats memory like a horse for my big files. On my previous build (2019) I had 64 GB ram and Photoshop would constantly eat all of that when I worked on large files. Pretty much the same happens now with 128 GB ram but it’s still much faster than before, maybe the faster hard drives helps a bit as well. Some comparison with my previous build:

System Startup: before 20 seconds, now 12 seconds
Photoshop Launch time: before 10 seconds, now 4 seconds
Open one of my large PSB files: before 01:45 min, now 01:10 min
Open another of my large PSB files: before 01:52 min, now 01:13 min
Save one of my large PSB files: before 12:51 min, now 10:25 min

So what does this say? Well it seems Photoshop is still not very optimized to todays technology, it’s very seldom that the CPU or GPU has to start working hard (100%) in Photoshop, it still mostly seems to be the speed and amount of RAM that matters, and to some extend the speed of the harddrives when the RAM gets used up and it has to rely on the scratch disk. The GPU is however very useful when editing and rendering videos.

Furthermore I had major problems using After Effects on Windows 11, it kept crashing and re-booting my system, completely unusable! I went back to Windows 10 and it works perfectly with After Effects, not sure if this is a Windows or Adobe problem but it’s for sure not playing well together. So stay off Windows 11 if you need to use After Effects!

I’m not much of a gamer anymore but it was nice to fly Flight Sim on ultra graphics smoothly while cruising over my hometown and Prague.

Exhibition Paris, Institut suédois

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Ideas Come at Night - Les idées viennent la nuit

From February 18th until April 24th 2022 my new exhibition “Ideas Come at Night“ is on display at the Swedish Institute in Paris, France. The exhibition contains twelve large artworks and six smaller works together with a collection of about 160 sketches of Erik’s work of previous and upcoming projects. The exhibition is built around a center room containing a bed and lightbulbs illuminating the small inner room. The walls in the inner room are decorated with sketches and ideas, some of the original sketches included in the exhibition itself. In addition to the artworks the exhibition has two monitors, one showing the creative process as told by myself. The other shows a few behind the scenes videos.

Big thanks to the Swedish Institute in Paris and Tina Peterkova for the design/concept collaboration and architectural part of the project. I hope you get a chance to see it if you happen to be in Paris!

Admission is FREE and it’s open Wednesday - Sunday, noon - 6 pm.

Location:
Institut Suédois
11 Rue Payenne, 75003 Paris, France

More info about the Swedish Institute and the exhibition here: www.paris.si.se

Art for Ukraine

UPDATE:
SOLD OUT IN 90 MINUTES!
BRINGING IN € 9600 TO UKRAINE!

€ 800 — Edition of 12

100% of the sale price will be donated to Ukraine Humanitarian Fund

Signed and numbered on the front. Special limited edition print of “Self-Supporting“ under the name “Together we are Strong“.

Paper: Rauch Museum Natural Silk 300
Print size: 58 x 46 cm ( 22.8 x 18.1 inches )

Shipped rolled in a protective tube. Price includes worldwide shipping. If interested please send a message to the email below.

ukraine@erikjohanssonphoto.com

Exhibition Kalmar Slott, Sweden

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New Exhibition at Kalmar Castle in Sweden! For the past week I’ve been in Kalmar preparing a new exhibition (behind the horizon) that was suppose to open today. Unfortunately covid has postponed the opening date a few weeks but everything looks amazing and I’m very excited to finally have a new exhibition open! I hope you get a chance to come to Kalmar to check it out later this year. The exhibition consists of 52 large artworks including 3 new unreleased works and it’s open all the way until November 2021! Big thanks to Kalmar Castle and everyone involved for making this happen and to Sandeng for amazing printing and framing!

Exhibition documented by
Adam Humlesol, adamhumlesol.se

Work Together - Behind the Scenes

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A behind the scenes video of my project "Work Together" Photographed in July 2020. In order to make the structure look as realistic as possible I build a 1:8 scale model out of concrete, additional textures where also applied in post to make it look larger. I also dragged a heavy concrete object through the tall grass to create a realistic trace behind the structure. The models where photographed at 4 different heights to match the perspective of where they would be placed on the structure. Behind the scenes video coming tomorrow of how it was made! You may see a larger version of it on my website, link in profile!

Big thanks to the models: Maria, Joakim, Mattias, Jonas
Music licenced by Epidemic Sounds: The Girl from Summer Camp - pär

work-together.jpg

Up the Past - Behind the Scenes

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A look into the process of how I created my latest photo project "Up the Past" A look into the past, and idea about how we tend to see more positive on the things that are behind us, memories of how something used to be. Photographed at the same location in winter and summer in Sweden in two different perspectives and combined in Photoshop.

It was a quite long process to create this image. First I had to find a good location and house. Once I found this I wanted to photograph material for the darker part of the image in Winter and the brighter upper part in Summer.

Have a look at the video below to see how it was made!

Camera: Hasselblad H6d-50c, Light: Profoto B10 & Pro7b, Software: Adobe Photoshop.

Office Escape - Behind the Scenes

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Office-Escape.jpg

For my latest project I wanted to create a place where a person has decided to escape his old habits and obligations to take a step out into the unknown. Blocking the door with his office chair and creating a paper plane made of old office papers. (in fact made out of my old failed exams from my university time). I wanted to create a symmetric composition representing the old and new world to make it look as if it's a crossroad between the old and new path, with the man posissioned slightly to the right as if he already made up his mind, this is his escape.

Victor_plane_0161.jpg

I had a large silver umbrella outside the window on the right side with a flash with a warm filter that would give this soft big light from the right side on the model and environment (profoto b1x). From the left side I had a smaller flash where the window of the door is with a blue filter (profoto A1) aimed towards the model. I also had a third flash with a slight greenish filter aimed towards the ceiling giving on overall soft fill light, making the ceiling act like a giant softbox (profoto b10). That's basically it. The paper plane was a real size 2 meter prop I built and all the props in the background i either rented or bought. I wanted to give it a feeling of being a snapshot somehow so did a high res scan of a plain negative shot on a analog Hasselblad camera that I applied on top of the image to create realistic analog feeling noise / grain. The model was a friend of mine. Colors were tweaked in photoshop but that's pretty much it. Door shot separately and placed there in post in the same perspective and light. See the video below how it was made.

Photoshop Computer Build 2019

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Note: This post is not in any way a sponsored or paid for. I bought all the components mentioned below for full price myself.

Whether we like it or not most of us has to spend a lot of time in front of computer screens. When I’m shooting on location I use a Macbook Pro but when it comes to the heavy photoshop work I have always relied on building my own computers. There are a few reasons for this, one of them being that it’s cheaper in terms of the performance you get out of the system (quite a big difference compared to a Mac Pro) but it also gives you the possibility to customize your system just the way you want and optimize it for the programs you use!

I thought I could share my build with you in case you’re thinking about building a system yourself. My primary programs are Photoshop and Lightroom but also occasionally Premiere Pro and Aftereffects. The monitor is still the most important part of a editing computer and I will still stick with my highly reliable Eizo Coloredge CG318-4k. Julian Erksmeyer helped me pick out the components for the system based on my needs and it ended up being a very fast machine at a fairly affordable price.

Processor: Intel i9 9900K
CPU cooler: Noctua NH-D15S
RAM: G.SKILL 64GB - 3200 MHz
HDD: M.2 515gb System Disk, M.2 256gb Scratch-/Project Disk, SSD 4tb Large Project Disk
Graphics card: PNY QUADRO RTX 4000 (for 30bit color support in Photoshop)
Motherboard: Asus Z390-F
PSU: Seasonic 750W platinum
Case: Fractal Design R5 - White

Total Cost: ~ € 3 000 EURO +VAT

If you consider building your own computer and need advise I can gladly recommend getting in touch with Julian Erksmeyer. He is currently building a small powerful workstation and you can follow his work here: https://www.erksmeyer.de/my-2019-workstation/

Stellantis - Behind the Scenes

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STELLA_FINAL.jpg

Stellantis is a project I’ve been working on for a long time, not that it was the most complicated project but because I wanted to make sure to get all the details right. I had this idea about someone stealing stars from the night sky and I thought it would be nice if it’s done with the help of an everyday object that we all can relate to. I thought that a giant tweezer could be an interesting object and I went on a search to try to find one. It was easier said than done and as I realized they don’t make them particulary big I decided that the best way to make it come to life would be to build one. The model in the image, Stella, helped me bring it to life as she also works as a production designer on films and we found a blacksmith in Prague that could help us. We ended up with a 150 cm solid aluminium piece, fully functional. This object is currently on display as part of the exhibition in Seoul Art Center until September 2019.

Look through the images and video below to see how it was created.

Exhibition - Minneapolis, USA

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On the 26th of January the doors opened to my first exhibition in USA at the American Swedish Institute in Minneapolis, Minnesota. There are 25 large photographs on display throughout the mansion to be explored. We had a fantastic opening on the 25th of January and the exhibition will be open all the way to the 28th of April 2019. If you’re in Minneapolis or close by make sure to check it out. I put together a video below that gives you a brief summary of the exhibition.