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Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problemsFix Now →Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitchesFind Drivers →There is no single recipe for surreal photography. Some artists stage props or photograph themselves, while others build collages, composite many exposures, or use 3D software and digital manipulation. The artists below are useful starting points because each makes a clearly different kind of impossible image.
The title-matched Technorapper article was published in March 2023, but its page was unavailable for verification. The names here therefore should not be presented as a confirmed transcript of that article’s 34-person roster. They are documented examples from a separate ExpertPhotography guide (updated August 4, 2026) and PRINT Magazine’s September 10, 2021 feature.
| # | Preview | Product | Price | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |
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Rodney Smith: Photography between Real and Surreal | $32.00 | Buy on Amazon |
| 2 |
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Surreal Photography: Creating The Impossible | $33.21 | Buy on Amazon |
| 3 |
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Sixties Surreal | $30.92 | Buy on Amazon |
| 4 |
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The Rainbow Atlas: A Guide to the World's 500 Most Colorful Places | $29.99 | Buy on Amazon |
| 5 |
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Surreal Spaces: The Life and Art of Leonora Carrington | $20.97 | Buy on Amazon |
How to use this roundup
Choose artists by construction method, subject and mood, and the amount of realism you want. “Surreal” can mean an apparently realistic photograph of an impossible event, an obviously assembled collage, or an image whose strangeness comes from an in-camera decision.
| Artist | Primary construction | Distinctive focus | Visual effect |
|---|---|---|---|
| Platon Yurich | Staged props and manipulation | Conceptual scenarios | Impossible situations with a photographic base |
| Anna Maghradze (Invisible Girl) | Digital collage, commonly two or three photographs | Isolation, dreams, hopes and fears | Intimate, symbolic dream worlds |
| Aydın Büyüktaş | Aerial photography, composites and 3D software | Landscapes and city spaces | Terrain folded into impossible perspectives |
| Erik Johansson | Multiple photographs blended into one scene | Believable impossibility | Worlds that look real until their logic breaks |
| Zeren Badar | Material intervention in portraiture | Everyday objects disrupting familiar images | Playful visual surprise |
| Dasha Pears | Fine-art photographic construction | Dreams and self-discovery | Painterly, contemplative dream imagery |
| Evgeniy Shvets | Photography and collage | Coherent color and visual atmosphere | A unified Instagram feed rather than isolated tricks |
Artists to explore
Platon Yurich: conceptual impossibilities
ExpertPhotography describes Platon Yurich as a conceptual photographer who combines props with manipulation to create scenarios that cannot occur in ordinary space. His work is a good entry point if you want surreal images that begin with a recognizable photographic setup before bending its rules.
#1 Best Overall
Anna Maghradze (Invisible Girl): collage as an emotional language
Anna Maghradze, who publishes as Invisible Girl, often constructs digital collages from two or three photographs. The ExpertPhotography profile connects those composites with isolation, loneliness, dreams, hopes and fears. The result is less about showing off an edit than using an impossible arrangement to express an interior state. The guide also points to Digital Dreamworlds, an artist-collaborator ebook, for readers interested in her approach.
Aydın Büyüktaş: landscapes folded into themselves
Büyüktaş’s Flatlay series starts with aerial views and turns them into warped, folded perspectives through planning, compositing and 3D software. Roads, buildings and open ground remain legible, but their spatial relationship becomes impossible. Follow this work if your interest is large-scale geometry rather than character-driven fantasy.
Rank #2
Erik Johansson: making the impossible look photographed
Erik Johansson blends multiple photographs into a single surreal scene designed to appear realistic even when the depicted world is impossible. His method is especially instructive for viewers who want to understand how lighting, perspective, texture and edge detail can persuade the eye to accept a visual contradiction.
Zeren Badar: ordinary portraits, unexpected materials
In PRINT Magazine’s September 10, 2021 feature, Zeren Badar is represented by work in which a portrait is obscured by pastel marshmallows. The appeal lies in the collision between a familiar portrait format and a deliberately incongruous material. PRINT also discussed exhibitions in that 2021 article; those references describe the situation at publication and are not a statement of current exhibition schedules.
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Rank #3
Dasha Pears: dream imagery rooted in self-discovery
PRINT Magazine describes Dasha Pears’s work as dreamlike and concerned with self-discovery. Her statement, reproduced in the feature, places her influences across several traditions: “My art is influenced by classical painting, post-impressionism, surrealism, as well as contemporary and modern visual art.” That range helps explain the images’ painterly atmosphere without reducing them to a single technique.
Evgeniy Shvets: collage, photography and a consistent palette
PRINT identifies Evgeniy Shvets as a visual artist, collage maker and photographer, and notes the coherent palette running through his Instagram posts. He is worth studying as a feed-level editor: color continuity and repeated atmosphere can make a body of surreal work feel intentional even when the individual images use different constructions.
What separates these approaches?
In-camera and staged work
Props, timing, camera position and self-portraiture can create a surreal result before extensive post-production. This route preserves the physical evidence of the scene and often gives the image a tactile quality.
Collage and compositing
Collage artists combine separate photographs or visual fragments. The key decisions are selection, scale, masking, perspective and the relationship between fragments—not simply the number of layers.
Best Value
Digital and 3D manipulation
Digital artists can reshape space, remove physical constraints and build environments that would be impractical to stage. Büyüktaş’s folded aerial landscapes show how 3D planning can support a composite, while Johansson’s scenes demonstrate the importance of making every component share believable light and detail.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.How to find your own 34-person watchlist
- Start with a construction method. Search for staged, collage, composite, aerial or 3D work according to the kind of making you want to study.
- Filter by emotional register. Choose whether you want playful disruption, melancholy, introspection, visual puzzle-making or expansive landscape work.
- Check process transparency. Some artists explain their tools or publish educational material; others present finished images with little technical commentary.
- Separate historical features from current activity. PRINT’s article is dated September 10, 2021, and the Technorapper result is dated March 2023. Instagram accounts, exhibitions and links can change, so confirm an account’s current status before treating an old feature as a live recommendation.
- Keep the list personal. A useful 34-account collection can mix photographic illusion, collage, staged performance and 3D manipulation rather than forcing every artist into one definition of surrealism.
A technique resource for aspiring surrealists
Rikard Rodin’s Surreal Photography: Creating the Impossible is a directly relevant optional companion. The publisher preview describes examples of surreal photographs and explains how they were made, including camera phones, lenses, filters and timing. Current stock, edition details and affiliate availability were not established, so treat it as a subject-specific learning resource rather than a required purchase or an endorsement by any artist listed here.
Why the number “34” needs a qualification
The unavailable March 2023 Technorapper page is the source of the exact “34” framing, but its full list cannot be verified here. ExpertPhotography’s updated August 4, 2026 guide is a separate article with its own roster, and PRINT Magazine’s September 10, 2021 feature highlights five artists: Zeren Badar, Murat Yıldırım, Lena Krashevka, Dasha Pears and Evgeniy Shvets. Those publications corroborate examples of surreal practice; they do not establish a canonical list of 34 Instagram artists.
The Bottom Line
Use the artists above as contrasting entry points: Yurich for conceptual setups, Maghradze for emotional collage, Büyüktaş for folded aerial space, Johansson for convincing composites, and Badar, Pears and Shvets for material, painterly and palette-led approaches. The exact 34-name Technorapper roster remains unverified.
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