Portland, Oregon-based photographer and visual artist Jim Kazanjian is like the M. C. Escher of architectural photography. His art pieces appear to be photos of some of the strangest looking buildings found in the weirdest locations, but the reason the images are so dreamlike is because they came from Kazanjian’s mind rather than the real world.



Each piece is what Kazanjian calls a “hyper-collage.” The artist creates them using a large collection of photographs found on the Internet — a collection that currently contains nearly 30,000 images.

Kazanjian then takes tiny bits and pieces from these photographs and, using Photoshop, blends them into photo-manipulations that don’t really have anything to do with the original photographs. A proper camera is nowhere to be found throughout the entire creation process.

Some of the “photos” are actually the result of combining more than 50 separate photographs into a single bizarre scene.

Each piece is very unique, and is the result of a certain degree of chance. Kazanjian slowly browses through image after image, and looks for ways certain elements could be fitted together into a coherent scene. He might take some windows from one photo, a door from another, and a waterfall from yet another. As a result, each piece takes on a completely new direction than any of his other pieces.

Here’s a selection of images showing some of Kazanjian’s dreamlike architectural creations:

You can find more of Kazanjian’s work over on his website. Prints are also available through the 23 Sandy Gallery.

(via Colossal)

Image credits: Photo collages by Jim Kazanjian and used with permission