Mood:  hungry

So, before photography was invented and became employed by the masses, paintings all at once strove to accurately reflect reality and make it appear a little better than it really did.  Coinciding with or inspired by the advent of photography,new painting styles evolved to more accurately depict the world as a photo would, without constructing environments around the subjects and without smearing a soft focus on the uglinesses.  What tickles me about a lot of current photographers is that they are using a very honest medium to lie the way painters tried to use a very untrustworthy medium to tell the truth.  Photo editing has been around for long enough that people wouldn't trust what they see quite as much as with the Cottingley fairy pictures, but a good illusion is still a good illusion, even if the illusion is charactured tongue in cheek.  These are some of my favorites lately.

Julian Wolkenstein fabricates powerful images by throwing a little/huge bit of the unexpected and inexplicable (via Neatorama).

Avid Liongoren expertly incorporates drawn characters into photographic backgrounds in his Project 365 continued (via Drawn!).

Joshua Hoffine captures the horror of all the things that lurk in the night and sometimes the day-time, often with inconceivable photographic realism (via Right Some Good).

 Mutley James recently finished a book of his photo adaptations, Snapshots of the Abyss available for purchase on lulu.