source: papermag

Kylie Woon, the 21-year-old photographer behind Surreal-ity, an eerie, dreamy series of photos making the rounds around the Internet, explains the concept behind her images: “Everyone feels a sense of longing or wistfulness for something at some point and it is then that they escape into their minds,” says Woon. “I feel like my pictures are created in that ‘place’, that ‘wavelength’ that all people visit in their dreams, in their most personal thoughts.”

All of the photos were shot in Hawaii, where Woon was once a student at the University of Hawaii, before relocating to Singapore for art school. To create the photos, Woon says she begins by remembering a feeling in her mind, creates a “mind-map” and then selects the perfect location to shoot said feeling. The real magic happens in the editing. “My images are all manipulated in Photoshop,” says Woon. “I composite two or more images together to create the surreal floating effects.”

Woon (who is also the girl in the pictures) says that she’s trying to capture this very specific, yet universal feeling. “I’ve always believed everyone has this quiet, wistful personal world within them — places so personal that they’re often not discussed or even consciously thought about,” says Woon. “That ‘dreamplace’ is sort of where I want to meet and connect with people.”